SAO on the rise
by ChazRay
Summary: 100 floors and an absolute ton of trapped Americans, surprisingly enough there are actually a visible number of girls (halleluliagh) so at least the guys are not stuck with just themselves, friends and foes. This is the tale of those imprisoned in a game and the war they wage against it.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, any of its characters or any designs associated with it. **sorry but I've uploaded from iPad so I have to delete like a million coding line -_- doing it asap.**  
>...cardinal system activated...<p>

A large burst of 0's and 1's splurge over screens peered at by men wearing a white shirt and a tie shouting things behind them.

"Psychological trauma system active"

"Ambient npc data up and running"

"Monster respawn activated"

There were too many voices speaking so the words were lost but the meanings were all positive.

A smirk escapes the lips of a young man with grey steely eyes as he stood dominantly behind the large array of computers and working men nodding his approval at each piece of news.

"Sir Mr Kayaba is calling" came an excited feminine voice from the mans left side.  
>The man turned to see a young raven haired woman standing there bubbly holding a phone with the words, Kayaba calling.<p>

"Ah yes thank you Tilly, but no need for the formalities. call me Jeremy." Replied the young man with a smile as he turned to face her and collect the phone.

Tilly stood silently to the side while Jeremy put his ear to the receiver.

"Hello Mr Kayaba it is nice of you to call"

"Ah but why is it so?" Came a sagely voice from the other end.

"Well that is because we're just doing a last test run of ether system to make sure it all works and i find it very good for you to join us in the testing of your own creation"

"Hmm, smart man. Does it work?" The tone of his voice suggested that he already knew the answer

"Yes it does and my team are ready to go"

"Good. Get some rest. You'll need it for the times to come. Good luck Dyas"

With that sentence the line was cut.

The system checking lasted for another hour no faults found and with a loud clap to quiet the gossiping workers Jeremy cleared his throat and addressed them all.

"Get some rest for the times to come...24 hours till the official launch of Sword Art Online"

-page break-

"Jake what is 2 plus 3i in modulus/argument form?" Blared a voice like a trumpet blasting my face off of my maths book and snapping my chocolate brown eyes open.  
>"Umm" I feigned thinking as I ruffled my scruffy brown hair and turned slightly to catch the eye of Carl sitting over yonder to there right.<p>

Carl being on the ball as ever stealthily angled his book up so I could see it.

Smiling inwardly I turn back to the teacher I say in my most neutral voice:

"Root of 13 cis 0.98"

Ms. Lin stood undaunted as a smile escaped her lips

"Correct but could you do it yourself next time"

Groaning with the sniggers of my classmates I plonked my head back down on to the table in hope of escape from this place.

Finally the bell rings and I sprint out of the door vaulting over Carl's table with a lets go nudge of my head. Once outside I greet him with my usual "argh I hate Maths" while he chuckles at me being caught out.

We stroll along the corridor in view of our school park already layered with students dying for some non class related fresh air.

"Hey so I think you just broke your record" mused Carl from beside me

I turned curiously to see his ocean blue eyes twinkling under his black hair.  
>"Huh?"<p>

"3 minutes and 12 seconds without even mentioning SAO in the past 3 months"  
>My heart skipped a beat, my brain exploded into activity and my hands snooks tremendously as my jaw dropped in shock.<p>

"OH GOD HOW COULD I FORGET?"

My roar made the chattering groups of students jump out of their shoes, literally in some cases. Grabbing onto Carls side as he chuckles with a "and he's off again"

I roar triumphantly to the sky "ITS TODAY"

Uncaring of the strange stares coming my way I bounce up and down twirling Around Carl in pure just stands there laughing at my joy while shaking his head in utter confusion at how I could be so happy about a game.

After about half a minute of frolicking in the corridors Carl stops me.

"don't you have to set up the Nerve Gear and everything?"

"Oh right...GOD WHAT AM I STILL DOING HERE?"

I wave hurriedly to Carl as I sprint full speed towards my bicycle, unlock it and race back home.

-page break-

Bursting through my door at around 6, shouting "I'm home" to my parents, I scramble upstairs and slam my bedroom door shut.

A large brown cardboard box sits on my bed in the room with a label Nerve Gear. Leaping into the air with a comical "yippee" I rip open the box placing the contents with as much care as I could muster from my shaking hands.

I excitedly read through the manual once, but then had to read through it calmly because I missed out on pretty much everything. After rereading the instructions clearly a few times I got down to piecing it together.

With a "phew" I collapsed onto the floor by my dinner dishes to my right and to my left a dark blue, metallic helmet. The Nerve Gear. I glanced up to the clock, the zombie hand missing a finger pointing at the time. 9:28pm.

"Jesus" I exclaim to the empty room. It took me around 3 hours to build this thing, just imagine if I had to build a group of these things for my buddies...Ah I forget. What buddies. I'm literally one of the few people in my school who overtly expresses my gaming 'obsession' as many put it but I just think its a cool hobby. well to be truthful it is sort of like an obsession and according to my fellow obsessors, most of them just don't have the cash or the time. Me, I got both.

"Jeez it sure would've been fun if Carl got one too but alas I must venture on alone" I state to my beautiful Nerve Gear.

On that note maybe I should just recheck the opening times.

I twirl over to my computer and turn it on impatiently. Once I open the browser I search the time differences and find that the opening time is 1pm Japanese time, so therefore... 3am my time. Ok gives me 5 hours before school sweet.

I set multiple alarms for an hour before, 30 minutes before and 10 minutes before the opening and hit the sack.

-page break-

A multitude of chirping a, blaring horns and wake up dude from my alarms reels me back into consciousness. 30 minutes before, nice.

I go put some toast on and lavish it with peanut butter, chocolate and jelly on top, double layering each thing.

I am 18 but my love for a peanut butter, chocolate and jelly double jumbo breakfast will never die.

Sneaking back upstairs munching on the delicious meal and sipping on some well thought of glass of water I re-enter my room.

After finishing my breakfast I glance up at my clock to see 13 minutes left.  
>"Well let's get started" I direct towards my Nerve Gear. I put it on, do this strange feel yourself for calibration which i guess is understandable since it's a full dive. After a few minutes of trying to unsuccessfully make my arms seems bigger and cursing at my 10 minutes alarms I finish up with the calibration and rest on my bed looking at the time on the top left hand side of my view.<p>

2:58am man I'm so excited. I can feel my whole body tingling from head to toe. I can hear my heart beating slowly and rhythmically...

Man these are some really long 2 minutes...2:59... Breathe just breathe it's ok the minute cannot last forever...  
>3:00am<p>

A giant grin spreads across from my face as I utter the words

"Link Start"

-page break-

short and sweet? What do you think? We'll I don't expect any reviews but if there are any ill be super happy! Btw if you were wondering these will be my own creations (OC) and although the anime/light novel characters are awesome I'm showing a different adventure.  
>the story will go pretty slow so no jumping 30 floors but then we get more juicy details and personality growths. My characters are a bit hmm, new and shiny but you'll soon learn more about them.<br>anyways come back next week or even tmrw ( I got a lot of free time right now) and I'll have a next chapter up and running  
>Btw if someone could please tell me how to do page breaks that would be magnificent thanks.(nevermind just use my comp to do it -_- )<p> 


	2. Chapter 1: Logging in

**so phew made it in 1 day, I got a lot of free time atm which is awesome so ill make as much as I can :D. Enjoy.**

The rainbow of lines shooting past me was quite a shock but nothing compared to the pure white world behind it forcing me to squint to preserve my eyes from further pain.

•Please Enter Desired Username•

'Drake' I typed in without pause, I had spent hours of my time thinking of a name best for me and I found it while slaying a dragon in a lvl 80 raid group. As I was delivering the finishing blow with my mages fireball the name just came to me. Drake was what I ended up with after spending more hours refining it and It suits me pretty well because, well Drake-Jake are kinda similar.

while I was standing there proudly the window disappeared and mirrors materialised out of nowhere and surrounded me. Lots of little windows labelled age, gender, weight, height, facial features and so on were dotted around me.

I clicked on the windows and they opened to show sliders, some had only one while others had hundreds flying out at me. After opening every single last window I stood there in the midst of a horde of sliders all labelled with different things. I smiled to myself, this is going to be fun.

-page break-

once again It seemed like I was chucked down a tunnel of rainbows but this time at the end an obelisk came into view and it was not alone. It was placed on a orange cobblestone floor with medieval style buildings keyed next to one another in a bending line. I blinked once, twice and then I knew this must be it, not a dream but the Starting City.

Sounds of people grew from whispers to a noisy, bustling town as my ears adjusted to the sound. The smell of cooked meat wafted past me giving me a small whiff of it as it went past. I brought my hands up and squeezed my fists then touched my face.

"whoa" escaped my lips as It felt just like a face should feel like. I tentatively take a few steps my smile growing wider with each one until it is a full blown grin. At that point I'm so ecstatic that I just jump out of joy earning me more than a few strange stares from onlookers but many knowing smiles passed across their faces. I jump as high as I possibly can and feel the impact as I fall down rising up my legs to my shoulders.

Grinning like a kid at Christmas I set off in the general direction following the flow of the crowds. Talking about the crowds I notice that there are a huge amount of people where I am and there are just so many different types of people. There are blond goddesses walking in line with 6 foot giants as well as some surprisingly average looking people. I sigh inwardly as I spot a trio of purple haired women their chests bursting from their padded clothing; sadly most gamers are guys so the number of women avatars that are actually women is pretty low. Although the eye candy is always a pleasure.

Ingeniously I look down and see that yes I am wearing the same padded clothing and torn trousers, I guess everyone's a beggar at the moment. however apparently I look pretty cool in my clothes because I catch the eyes of a couple of the ladies/guys who give me a wink before the crowd forces them onwards. as I'm walking through the crowds I stop at a shop window to have a look at my reflection.

I am a man, even though the female choice was fun and I miss the feeling when I jump I ended up as a guy because I'd rather not be one of the lady/guys. I changed my hair to be a couple of inches longer and slicked back the ends sticking horizontally out. It was also a dark blue matching the new colour of my eyes; dark blue as well. my height changed the same because even though I'm only 5'6 I'm 5'6 of awesomeness. Gave myself a more defining jaw and also toned my non-existent muscles so I don't look like the weedy gamer I am. Apart from that I ended up keeping my avatar as close to me as possible because there were way too many choices, took me a whole 30 minutes to just do this.

"looking good Drake" I wink and point at the mirrored version of myself before the crowd pushed me back into line.

the town that I could see/hear over the hordes of players was impressive to say the least. The npc's were all friendly and interacted to a certain extent, the buildings were nice to look at while not being flashy and the town was generally a huge bustle of people doing things of all sorts.

one shop that caught my eye while I was strolling and enjoying the view was a blacksmiths of a muscly npc with a thick brown beard and a balding head. The npc did not interest me so much but the array of different weapons definitely caught my eye. I sauntered up to the shop already bustling with activity and squeezed into the crowd. There was a large range of weapons from simple swords to big mauls and particularly a large silver battle-axe with a leafless tree ornately carved on its head all the way down to black leather handle. I caught the attention of the smith and asked him for the weapons name.

"Ah she's a fine blade she is, The Silvered Splitter she is, and only 2400 col a bargain." came his deep, hearty reply.

"hmm" I mused to myself as I tried checking my pockets for this col, which is the currency SAO uses but found nothing.

"swipe your right hand down in front of you" came a light Irish voice from my left

I looked at the speaker: true to his accent his character has frizzy orange hair but the likeness stops there. His face is well structured making him seem in his late 's also around 6'4 which was kinda scary to look up at. mildly confused by the statement and surprised at his avatar I stood there in shock/thought for a second before swiping my right hand down. I was quite shocked to see the menu appear.

"aha, there we go. Thank you"

"No problem, just helping the newbies" he states as he waves a goodbye and disappears into the crowd.

a noob huh, well I guess that's what I am in this game, I mean I play a lot of MMORPG's but this is something completely new to me. Drake the newbie, I gotta right that quickly. I turn back to the smith and ask him if he needs help with anything. As I suspected an exclamation mark appears on his head and there is a little ping as a quest screen appears before me: collect 15 boar tusks for the Smith, Rewards: 1 Boar's Blade, 250 col and 130 experience. I accepted the quest and went back to my previous train of thought.

I fiddled around in the menu checking out the map, my backpack and my character himself. I carried 3 'weak healing potions', a 'home teleportation crystal', my shirt and trousers, 1 loaf of bread, a flask of water and a 'Beginners Sword'. I also carried around 0 col, understandable but still sucks. My character profile was quite interesting as I looked at my stats:

Strength: 5

Agility: 5

Dexterity: 5

Perception: 5

Vitality: 5

Luck: ?

Using my knowledge as a veteran gamer I compiled some ideas on each stat. The strength and agility being obvious as to what they are. Dexterity should help with speed of my attacks, perception would be useful for spotting things like traps and hidden loot and such. Vitality is health of course and luck well that's self explanatory but the question mark made me wonder if everyone started with different numbers. To be on the safe side I should find a guide of some sorts to explain these in more detail.

feeling satisfied with my menu exploration I equip my sword which materialises in its sheath and all around my waist which was pretty cool if I do say so myself, then shut my menu and headed off.

-page break-

I did not think of finding a route to the exit of town so I was forced to consult my map after a short while of wandering aimlessly in the crowd. Thankfully it led me towards a large open gate with green fields covering little hills behind it. Cracking my knuckles I marched out the gate.

as soon as I went past the gate another ping with a window appeared this time saying leaving safety zone. Nice to know that I can't be PK'ed in towns. I sprint, well it ended up being more like a slow jog thanks to the system, for a few minutes until I see a medium sized blue boar with yellow eyes materialise a few meters away from me. Stopping in my tracks my breath oddly enough still there since apparently running did not leave you breathless. I draw my sword to get a good look at it: it's as the name suggests, very basic iron sword with a decent durability, for beginners. I place my sword in front of me, widen my stance and grin because normally I would be behind a computer screen wielding a mouse but now I'm standing right here doing all the work myself.

"Yaah" I release my battle-cry as I charge the boar sword raised and crash it down onto its head knocking off a little bit of the green bar on the side of the boar, it's Hp bar I believe. Its eyes immediately flare red and its right tusk strategically placed between my legs comes straight up into me as I stand there causing me to shout pain as I fly a meter back. I see on the top left of my view another hp bar with Drake on the side move down around 5%. Ouch. I wince in pain on the ground but notice that actually I can't feel anything but that still doesn't stop me from giving another cry of pain as the boars tusk smacks me in the neck this time. 10% more down! a critical! better watch my neck then. This time instead of laying vulnerable on the ground I jump back up and dive to the side of the incoming boar tumbling in the grass before picking myself back up again quickly.

I once again dodge the charging boar while wondering where my sword is. that is quickly answered as I see it embedded on the head of the boar.

"Oh great so I gotta somehow collect that..." I groan as an idea flashes into my head

dodging easily, just sidestepping this time I widen my feet and squat down facing down the boar as it charges towards me squealing in rage. I wait patiently as a single sweat drop makes its way down my face. I see it's face contorted in anger coming closer and closer filling up my view with nothing else but it's angry face. It's tusks are an inch away from me and I then jump, which was not the best idea as I should have jumped a bit earlier as my feet were barrelled into, flipping me in the air. At least I got ahold of my sword and managed to rip it out causing another few bits of damage to the boar. after once again slamming into the floor with an "oomph" I jumped back up and out of the way of the boar.

With sword now in hand I'm grinning with pity for my enemy. It charges me again and again but I sidestep slashing at its sides which do around half of what I did in my attacks on the head, around 2%, head is a critical then. I repeat the action of sidestepping and slashing at the flanks of the beast for around 4 minutes before it finally stopped in midair and exploded into millions of tiny blue polygons which disappeared along with another ping bringing up a loot window for me. 45xp, 14 col and 1 boar tusk.

I sigh as I realise I might have to kill another 14 of them. Another 14 of these boars, well at least I understand their fighting pattern but my Hp is regenerating so slowly, it's barely moved up 3% a minute. I idly stand by watching many boars materialise in the distance and after my Hp reaches 100% I head off to the closest one.

-page break-

An hour and a half later I find myself splayed on the grass huffing and puffing because I can, and also because after repeating the dodge, slash method around 50 times a boar for 20 boars is quite tiring. Im not that good at maths but that's a lot of times, 1000 times jesus. On the bright side though I muse to myself, at least after the 7th boar I stopped getting smacked around by them every so often.

I open my menu to check what I got so far: 900xp, 236 col, 16 boar hides and 14 boar tusks. Man, I'm one short. I sluggishly stand up and take out my sword, well sword is what it used to be. At the moment it looks like a beaten up hunk of iron with bits of the blade missing. at least it does it's job so I don't really care for its looks. As long as it kills boars for me then I'm happy but I'd really like to upgrade it to that battle-axe though.

Cracking my knuckles I head towards the closest docile boar and charge it slamming my sword down on its head for 4% damage before stepping to the side of the now raging boar as it charges. I use my repeated and rinsed method hacking away at it health staying happily away from its tusks.

This one sided battle progressed perfectly until the boar was getting close to red and I slashed my sword on it's side as normal but midway through it's flank my sword broke off at the hilt the rest shattering into a million polygons in front of my shocked face.

I stood there shocked staring at my hilt of the beginners sword when the boar barrelled into me knocking me into the dirt while it tried to gore me while I was down.

I dropped the hilt grabbing the boars tusk pushing them away from my body but it was stronger and managed to slowly push its tusks into my body. In frustration I started punching the boar between the eyes as it wriggled its tusks around my body. I watched my health bar plummet down to 70% within a few seconds and it's bar only hitting red under my flurry of blows.

Changing tactics I grabbed onto the boars face and ripped its eyes out shattering them into polygons reducing it's health by half and as a bonus made it squeal in pain and loosen up on me. However by doing so it slashed it's tusks up my body and neck causing my health bar to drop to 40% with the double critical.

Using the boars easing up to my advantage I pushed sideways causing the boar to fall over and bring me on top of it where I gave it a feast of fists. my blows took tiny slivers of its health slowly reducing it until after a few minutes of mercilessly beating at the helpless boar until it had a tiny, tiny sliver left. I then brought my hands up together and smashed them down on its face quieting the squealing beast once and for all by shattering it into polygons.

upon this victory I roared fiercely to the heavens my hands aching and my hilt lying useless on the ground close to me. A window appeared with a ping after my roar ended as if the system itself waited for me to finish the celebration of the survivor. 45xp, 19col... No tusk. no freaking tusk. I'm going to have to do that whole thing all over again, all over again. I'm going to have to beat a boar up with my fists again...

"Oh c'mon" I scream to the heavens

a pair of laughters answer me from one side. I turn towards the sound to see 2 players sitting under a tree with their starting loaf of bread and water. Sitting on the left is a woman, quite a short woman with long, curly brown hair and twinkle in her silver eyes as she giggles at the display. The other is a large muscular man with a young face and long scruffy golden hair accompanied by his black stubble. He too laughs and as I turn scoffs the rest of his sandwich, stands up and claps slowly.

"That was quite a show" came his almost rumbling voice giving an insight that he is probably older than he looks.

"Yes I never would've thought to ever see that kind of bloodbath even in my dreams" replied the lady as she too stood up and clapped. Her voice was decently high pitched and not quite mellowed into a full woman's voice yet.

"It was a brilliant battle, made my day" said the man as he walked towards the kneeling me.

As he neared me I could see his features more clearly: his jaw was chiseled and laugh lines were indented heavily onto his face. His eyebrows were a thick black suiting his dark brown eyes. He wore the starting gear but the sword on his back was a large two-handed sword, though it just looked like a bigger version of my, I glanced to the handle on the ground beside me, sword.

He offered me a hand which I gripped and he lifted me off the ground. Once I stood we shook hands.

"The name is Kane, it's a pleasure to meet you"

"And I'm Gwynevith and I enjoyed the show!" Said the little lady as she bounced up to me with a grin plastered across her face. Her clothes were also the starting ones. They fitted well unlike many others which made them look scantily clad as she had little bust for the clothes to go around but the sword she carried also a two-handed seemed a lot bigger on her than on Kane.

"Drake, and thanks for not stealing the kill, but for future reference if you if you see someone beating up a boar with their bare hands you might want to give them a hand" I replied back with a cheeky grin

"Duly noted" they replied Kane sounding as if it were an order while Gwynevith accompanied hers with her own cheeky grin.

"Say, would you like to party with us?" asked Kane in a polite tone

"Huh?"

"I mean, it looks like your trying to collect the boar tusks and as it happens so are we, so why don't we party and collect them together."

"Also it looks like you can...handle yourself" added in Gwynevith with a sly grin.

"You should see me with a sword I look much more...sophisticated when I use that" I replied back

"Oh from street thug to butcher, you've made progress" she restored with her childish grin.

I was about to battle this one out when a window pinged in front of me with a invite to Kane's party. I accepted and saw their names with their own hp bars under mine.

"Shall we start with our slaying?" Interjected Kane as he unsheathed his big sword

-page break-

The boar squealed in agony as Kane's sword slashed the flank of the boar followed up by Gwynevith doing the same on the opposite flank causing the already badly beaten boar to go down to a tiny amount of health. I had charged the boar as it ended its charge and I met it once it stopped delivering 1, 2, 3 blows in it's face. I shouted "Triple Combo Punch" at the polygons floating and disappearing into thin air. 15xp, 4 col...1 boar tusk.

"I GOT IT" I roared absolutely thrilled at the others who then roared in happiness too as we gave multiple high fives to each other in victory while dancing around the spot.

"Finally" said Gwynevith as we finished frolicking on the boars grave.

She plopped herself down onto the grass and breathed in the fresh scent of nature. We followed suit throwing ourselves and their battered weapons to the ground.

"That took longer than expected" commented Kane quite neutrally

"We only had to get 31 boar tusks, only 31" I continued

"We were doing fine until that last one" added Gwynevith

"Yes my one"

"For some reason it took us 12 boars, 12 of them to get that tusk" she exclaimed in wonder

"Don't forget about the 42 boars beforehand, that makes 54 in total for all our tusks" sighed Kane as he added it up

"Jesus" said Gwynevith and I together

I checked the time on my menu and it said 7:48am. Took us almost 2 hours, wow. I swiped through my menu to see what I've collected so far: 1725xp, 522col, 15 boar tusks, 33 boar hides. it filled around 42% of my carrying capacity. Not bad.

I shut my menu and looked at the others. Gwynevith was staring out into the sunrise that after 5 hours now rose up to greet the world of SAO. I think it was nice that the sunrise was frozen in place for the first day so that many could leave the city when they logged on due to normally at night the monsters getting harder. Kane was lying with his eyes closed as if asleep but his constantly switching feet said otherwise.

"This has been hell of a morning" I said to no one in particular

"Yes it has, I mean I got to see this young man with slick blue hair beating abboar to death with his fists." Her sly grin accompanying the sentence.

"Ah yes but let's not forget the 2 butchers lying here with me, they really showed me how to butcher something properly" I answered back as I mused over their fighting style.

It was as I said, like butchers. When we first partied up Gwynevith boasted about their teamwork. They showed it for the first couple of boars before I taught them my way. It was in a sense teamwork but quite strange: one would get charged by the boar and use their sword to put it in a deadlock while the other would hack away at it furiously until their foe burst into polygons. It worked fine until the deadlocked, mostly Kane was pushed back by the boar causing it to gore him of 40% of his health in around 6 seconds. After a few punishing gores I took them to one side and taught them how to kill without being gored to pieces every so often. The rest of the time went by smoothly with us making our way round the field killing off boars 1 at a time.

We met a couple of people as we were 'slaying' and they were all having their own adventures with these boars: some were blazing through them while others were having a hard time but nothing as brutal as my fist only battle. we never saw the boars win their battles but we saw many people heading back to town with tattered clothing, battered weapons and shields however a gleeful smile always plastered on their faces as they had inevitable had accomplished some goal in one way or another.

After recalling my day I let out a relieved sigh and thought deeply about something for a second.

"Hey can I friend you guys?" I asked trying to sound chill but my voice betrayed me just at the end there

"Sure" they answered in unison, Kane had a smile creeping on his face while Gwynevith already had her full blown grin out as she turned onto her stomach, rested her head on her hands and looked full to bursting with anticipation.

I swished open my menu to find the Relations tab, opened it and sent a friend request to Kane and Gwynevith. 2 pings sounded by me and another 2 as both 'they accepted' windows popped up.

My belly rumbled and I took that as a sign. With a last deep breath of the sweet smell of wild grass I stand up offering hands to both my companions.

"I believe we should head back to town so we can get a nice meal and well..." I looked down at myself and to the sword hilt I kept for some reason "get some stuff to make us look a lot less like beaten up beggars"

"Right that is a good idea" Kane stated plainly as his eyes snapped open and he stood up leisurely

Gwynevith stood up also, looked me right in the eye and I saw the grin spreading across her face.

"Are you offering to buy us dinner?"

"Do I have a choice?" I asked with a raised eyebrow

"Nope!" She giggled and bounced down the field towards town with a c'mon.

Kane yawning audibly strolls after her and I walk by his side enjoying the landscape. It is truly marvellous with it being akin to real life, except for the no pain and no physical tiredness of course. Also the polygons gave it away as a game and the fantastical setting of being able to see different lands on pedestals far and close by. But apart from that this world is truly marvellous to experience, from the smell of nature to the sounds of the wind whistling through the grass.

We walked for barely a few seconds when an ominous bell rung it's sound filling the earth and drowning all other noise out...the landscape around disappears as a light blue light surrounds me.

**phew finally. Well hopefully I've been able to build a little on Drake(Jake) and on Kane and Gwynewith (her name gave me so many ****typo problems). Can't wait for next chapter because it's gonna be a good one: the Announcment! **

**-ChazRay out**


	3. Chapter 2: The Announcement

**wow im on a roll, but its not lasting forever (atm its lasting for the week). But wow yeah another chapter done and it looks pretty good if I may say so myself. Enjoy**

The light eventually fades allowing me to open my eyes, seeing that I am once again at the starting plaza. The monument is still looming in the middle with a ring of houses encompassing the plaza.

It is different however than when I first logged in: it was full to bursting of people and we were all uncomfortably close to each other. I know that there were 30,000 people who had got hold of the copy but only now when my visible world was filled with them did I realise just how many people that was.

There were originally 10,000 copies sold in California only, but due to the popularity ratings skyrocketing over the web and in some places protests, more copies were released. Another 20,000 copies were made to sell in the other states such as New York, Texas and in some places of Florida. They were the major hotspots of SAO buyers but some copies found their way to other states.

"Woah".

The exclamation came from behind me and I turned to see Gwynevith thinking along the same lines as me. I glanced around and confirmed that Kane was too standing close by with a similar awed expression.

I can hear people around me asking whether this is some sort of starting event or something. I make eye contact with a few people around me getting questioning faces as their answer on what's going on. even though people are just talking normally, 30,000 of them make it sound like the centre of a shopping mall on Black Friday(1).

The noise died as quick as it started as a red hexagon saying WARNING! Blared like a trumpet in the sky. Suddenly it spreads covering the sky with red hexagons saying System Announcement!

Once the sky was fully red, it large drops of viscous red liquid that merged into a then elongated and took form of a robe with golden trims With a faceless man inside it.

"Woah"

"Is this an event?"

"Is that the GM?"

"Why's he faceless?"

The floating man put his hand to where his mouth should be and coughed sharply two times causing the questioning players to quiet down.

"Attention Players. Welcome to my world." The man spoke in a practiced manner as if he had read and rehearsed the lines many times.

"I am the Game Master. As of this moment I am the sole person who can control this world."

"Ah if you weren't him i'd be worried" came from somewhere within the crowd earning a few half hearted laughs.

The man continued as if he did not notice the comment from below.

"I'm sure that you've already noticed that the logout button is missing from the main menu. This is not a defect from the game. I repeat...this is not a defect. It is a feature of Sword Art Online."

"Huh?" Escaped my lips as I had completely forgotten that I had to log out soon so I did not notice that anything was wrong. Though by a quick peek around I could see the faces of people who encountered that problem look even more crestfallen as they learnt they could not log out.

"You cannot logout of SAO yourselves. And no one on the outside can shut down or remove the Nerve Gear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the Nerve Gear will emit a powerful microwave destroying your brain and thus ending your life."

Everyone was looking around in shock and horror with many saying "you gotta be kidding me" and "haha stop playing with us" but they didn't sound too confident of their own words. I mentally screamed as I just knew that I should have read through the book more carefully and notice the possible microwave frying emitter in the Nerve Gear.

Some people tried to leave the plaza but were stopped by an invisible barrier making me feel even more claustrophobic than before. We were stuck here till the GM had finished what he wanted to say, and it seemed like he is not.

"Unfortunately the family and friends of some players have ignored this warning, and have attempted to remove the Nerve Gear. As a result 67 people have left both Aincrad and the real world forever."

He then brought up live news reports of the dead to wipe away any of our doubts that he was joking.

"As you can see new organisations all around the states are reporting all this, including the deaths."

Only 67 though, I can imagine what it would have been if the game had launched later on in the day. Because it was launched so early most people would be able to see the morning news before seeing their respective person/people wearing Nerve Gears. Still to know 67 have died and I could have met then only hours ago shook me badly.

"Thus, you can assume that the danger of a Nerve Gear being removed is now minimal. I hope that this will relax you so that you may attempt to clear the game"

Game? Oh yes thats right I am still in a game even though these real life things are happening I am inside a game—

"Remember this clearly, there is no longer any way to revive someone within the game. If your Hp drops to zero, your avatar will be lost. And simultaneously the Nerve Gear will destroy your brain."

—Which can now kill you in real life.

"There is only one means of escape: to complete the game." A little 3D drawing appeared beside him. "You are presently on the lowest floor of Aincrad, Floor 1. If you make your way through the dungeon and defeat the Floor Boss, you may advance to the next level. Defeat the Final Boss on Floor 100 and you will clear the game.

"Clear 100 floors? Thats way too many!"

"I don't have time to do that, I have a meeting in 2 hours!"

"I could barely beat a boar, how am I supposed to beat a floor boss?"

"Finally I have added a present from me to your item storage. Please see for yourselves."

The air of confusion grew thick with that statement. A present? What could it be? I opened my inventory seeing my 3 weak health potions, 1 home teleport crystal, 1 loaf of bread, 1 bottle of water 15 tusks and a lot of boar skins... And a mirror?

I spawned the mirror like everyone else and looked into it seeing my ocean blue eyes staring back at me.

Cries of shock echoed around me as blue light once again surrounded everyone filling the plaza with blue light bright like a beacon on full power forcing me to shut my eyes or go blind.

The blue light receded after a few seconds and the sights before me were disturbing: many of the beautiful women were now regular looking guys, their curvy bodies replaced with lanky ones and faces dotted with freckles and spots. Not only them I noticed but everyone had changed to look more realistic, more average and in some cases even better looking.

One of these cases was Gwynevith who had let out a small squeak of fear at the reappearance of the blue light and gave a bigger one along with the gasps and whistles of those around her when the light faded away. Her long, curly brown hair stayed the same as well as her blue eyes and her facial features smoothened and became more round and bubbly. But the biggest change was her bust that forced her shirt to burst at the seams revealing most of what I imagine to be the mind boggling size, double D's. I swear that she also shrunk an inch or two because her sword just seemed a lot larger on her than before.

I glanced round to Kane to see him change slightly. Well I say that because his face looked the same just an older version of his ex-avatar. But his body's muscles grew in size and toned to look almost as if chiseled from stone and his hair shortened and slicked back. At least he still looked the same height and retained his black stubble.

After delaying the inevitable I look into the mirror and see, yes I guessed right, myself. My hair was once again the short, scruffy brown hair that is mine along with my dark brown eyes. I could feel my shirt loosen as I had lost my non-existent muscles and the tone disappeared too leaving me with my weedy body. Well at least I understand why I had to pat every part of my body.

The GM floated there waiting patiently as everyone exclaimed in horror, shock and awe as they themselves became their avatar, saw their friends avatars and saw the beautiful women turn into guys. Well most of them anyways as I glanced around seeing that there were actually a visible amount of women and some of the guys turned into women which was a shocker for many, myself included.

After about a minute passed the GM waved his hand across the sky silencing the crowds as they turned to face more news.

"This ends the tutorial for the official Sword Art Online launch. Good luck pla—"Ahahaha"

A single person in the crowd laughed breaking the unheeding barrier of the GM as he turned towards the laugher.

"You think that you can just end without us saying our word, are you crazy? Well it seems you are as you trapped us here but it is a common courtesy to let your victims speak. You think that what you told us, scared us? Did you think that it would make us go into hiding in fear of death? Well you thought wrong. We are not helpless lambs waiting to be slaughtered but lions once sleeping but no longer, for you have mightily pissed every single person here off."

"Isn't that right" he addresses to the crowd which some reply with "Yeah".

"EVERYONE here is a proud American and we will not succumb that easily to our deaths. America is our mighty nation and we, are its people. We are Californians" cheers from a large portion of the crowd "New Yorkers" more cheers, but less of them this time around "Texans" Yeehaw's littered the plaza "And Orlandeans" shouted an eager member from the crowd to which I Yeah'ed with the single other person.

The strangers voice once again pierced the air. "We are not weak individuals, but an army, an army 30,000 strong that will plough through the Heavens and Earth. We are imprisoned so we must break out, waiting for death is not our way...100 floors may seem like a lot but is it any different from back home? No! We must fight our way to the top both here and back home, but here is more simple. We have a blade in our hands and monsters to slay it could not be easier... We will smash our way through back to the real world. We shall not lose hope, for we shall defeat this game and conquer Aincrad for our friends, family and loved ones stuck back home...and for us!"

The crowd had listened to him curiously as did I and as he spoke, hope surged into me bringing my confidence back. It started quietly with a few hundred banging their weapons or stamping their feet in rhythm to the strangers words but grew to the thousands as his speech renewed our pride and hope. Soon a small earthquake shook the plaza caused by the rhythmic banging of tens of thousands of weapons and feet on the ground reaching its climax on 'for us' as without warning we roared. We roared our anger and hate for the red hooded man. We roared away our doubts and fears and we roared our declarations of war.

"DO YOU HEAR OUR CRIES OF BATTLE!?" The stranger roared over the deafening din of thousands of roaring people who quietened slightly to hear his words. "CAN YOU FEEL OUR WILL TO FIGHT?, LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF OUR ARMY READY FOR WAR, AND SPELLING YOUR DOOM!...JUST YOU WAIT FOR US GM SIR FOR WE SHALL COME, AND WE SHALL COME SOON TO VISIT YOU IN THE REAL WORLD. ISNT THAT RIGHT EVERYONE?!"

The roaring renewed itself onto a higher level as a reply, the thundering sound we made shook even the air around us.

I am adding slightly to the earthquake of sounds and I glanced round to see Gwynevith doing the same and Kane nodding in acceptance. I also noticed that there were some who just stood there still shell shocked from the news unable to process anything else, but they were a minority.

Facing the roaring crowds the GM looked, even though he had no face, somewhat shocked but also amused as he claps slowly three times causing everyone to quiet down.

"I shall be waiting" and with that the sky glitched and he along with the red hexagons disappeared.

Once again the roars filled the town shaking it to its roots and the crowd On the other side of the plaza moved slightly as if making way. After a few seconds a figure walked up to the monument in the middle and stareed out at all of us causing us to quieten and hold our breaths in anticipation. His muscles were ripped, even more so than Kane's. A single long scar travelled down his right cheek and down his chiseled right jaw. His black hair cut into a crew cut along with his hardened brown eyes gave him the image of a fierce man of the military. His boulder-like fists pull out a shiny steel two-hander that seems tiny next to him.

He raised the sword to the sky then pointed down towards the gate to the outside of the city "TO WAR!

The crowd bang their weapons on the ground, raise their fists into the air and roar TO WAR! as well before turning and marching out of town looking ready for battle.

I stayed behind in the plaza grabbing onto Kane and Gwynevith before they were swept with the crowd and waited for most of them to disperse. After a few minutes most of the people had left to do something but a few thousand stayed in the plaza. Most of them still stood out of shock, some collapsed and some were silently sobbing on the ground. I guess not everyone was riled up by his speech.

However we were, so once the crowd had thinned significantly I dragged them along through the much emptier streets that still held a decent amount of people bartering or getting breakfast.

"Well at least we didn't have to walk back to town" I break the ice with as I mentally face palm as I could not have picked a worse icebreaker.

"Yes thats true, and thank god that you didn't try to break the ice with a comment about my bust, which yes I caught you eyeing"

I stand corrected, that was much worse

"That would have been next thing I would have bounced onto." mentally and physically face palm this time due to my poor choice of words.

Kane guffawed with a "Well said" as Gwynevith blushed deeply with the system exaggerating it so her whole face went bright red.

"Talking about that, you should be careful of that shirt because it looks like its going to fall off in a second" commented Kane sagely causing Gwynevith's face to emanate a heat that I could feel.

"S-sssstop it you two!" She cried as she hugged her large bust as if trying to hid it but just making it seem even more bigger.

"Its just that its a big change from what we were used to" I said while unsuccessfully trying to not grin

"Just ssstop talking about them, lets look at you two instead!" She blurted out while trying to angle her bust away from our view.

"Drake over there looks like your average gamer and i'm just a well built older man, nothing much interesting about us" exclaimed Kane as if it were a common fact

"You on the other hand turned from young flat chested 5'0 woman to 16 year old 5'0 girl with a very obtrusive rack." I added on

"I'm 23!" She cried as she balled her fists and stamped her foot angrily on the ground while her face was still bright red, making it seem quite comical. "I'm just short for my age thats all!"

"A weedy gamer, a 5'0 abnormally busty woman and an older man with a lot of muscle. Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have a party" I exclaim loud enough for people to hear. But I doubt many did for those who bothered to turn to look were drawn into Gwynevith's bust causing her to go even redder if that was at all possible.

Finally we reached the blacksmiths which was empty at the moment so we could go inside without trouble and browse around the shop. The npc greeted us with a smile and asked us if he could help us with something.

We gave in our quests receiving the appropriate xp and col but we were also given a Boar Tusk Sword. It looked similar to a scimitar but not as curved and its blade was sharp bone. The stats were just slightly better than what used to be my beginners sword so I was happy. We ended up keeping all 3 so as to hopefully avoid another fist fight to the death with a monster ever again.

While the other 2 were handing in their quest I looked around the room for the battle-axe 'Silvered Splitter' which was still up for grabs. I took this for a good sign but I was still around 1500 col short.

We left the shop in search of some food and found ourselves by a restaurant that looked average. We went inside and checked the menu, turned right back around and out again. The food was super expensive as the cheapest item was a good 20 col, so we unanimously decided it would be in our best interests to not waste our money at the moment.

A short while afterwards we sat down on a bench in a park munching on our 1 col bread and sipping water from our 2 col bottles of water. As we eat I contemplate the situation we are in: we're stuck in a virtual world where the aim is to get stronger and beat the boss. You do not get tired running, do not feel pain to a certain extent and can become inhuman once you've levelled enough. Also there is no school, no exams to see where in the world you are placed. Here you are placed based on how well you play this game. Me, I am a professional gamer so I have an advantage. I will no longer spend my day learning things in a dull room rather I will now be spending my waking hours chopping at monsters of all kinds, maybe even dragon later on. Overall I feel that I am liking this way more than I should.

I glance and my fellow companions and see them also contemplating: Kane looks as though he has accepted and steeled himself while Gwynevith still looks a bit uncertain as to whether she should break down sobbing or play the game.

Feeling like a change of seating I go up to a nearby tree, climb up and hang upside down on one of the branches shouting "come join" to Gwynevith. She breaks out of her contemplating state and merrily joins me. Soon both of us are hanging like a pair of bats while munching on our bread and drinking our water which was difficult at first soaking my face as I misaimed.

After we had finished our bread we swung side to side calling to Kane to join us. He stood up and us hanging high-fived but Kane just cracked his knuckles and his neck making us give him curious stares.

"I think its about time we get ourselves up to level 2 don't you think?"

**I totally forgot page breaks but ah well its all really in one chunk anyways so that's fine.**

**Also what did you think on the things going on and the developing of my characters. I though that if you have 30,000 people there would be one stupid/bold enough to do a speech at that moment because everyone would be on the verge of doing the whole suicide thing.**

**Also if someones up for it could they post me a character of their own design? Because I believe i'll be introducing some people and well I'm fresh outta ideas atm, post them asap please and thank you!**

** Ah also** (1)Black Friday is a day in october when the shops on America go on sale and the priced get crazy low and literally everyone goes shopping so its usually jam-packed with people. So it would be very, very noisy.


	4. Chapter 3: Grinding, well supposedly

**Tadaa! Another one appear just like magic. Enjoy!**

A loud mechanical beeping sound interrupts my dreams bringing forth my consciousness back to the real world. Well technically the real world, as I am stuck in a game,so for the moment it is my real world.

That alarm though, it will soon become nothing as its ringing gets on my nerves. I open my eyes to see a little screen in front me with Alarm written on it. The off button resides in the middle of the screen but as I raised my hand to where it was, it moved...a little bit back. I got up on one elbow to extend my reach but again the screen moved further away. Gritting my teeth I sit up and as a response the screen flicked round to the side of my bed.

"Oh so that's how you want to play?" I snarl at the alarm as I prepare my move.

I look forward, away from the screen and inch my hand across the bed, then slowly crawled it inch by inch until it was at the level of the off button. I then at a snails pace slid my hand through the air getting my index finger a hairs breadth away from the button...The screen floated lazily away just before I connected with it till it was far from the bed. The ringing continuing to sound throughout the room.

"Fine" I rip my bedsheets off and stand up, "you win" I walk over to the non-moving screen and press the off button causing the noise to finally stop "This time"

Now that i'm awake I check out the room I rented for 5 col. As I suspected, it held a bed, a table and a window to the street below. You get what you pay for I guess. Sitting on the table, because apparently they did not come with a chair without extra cost. Sitting on the table I open my inventory and equip my clothes, rags being the more appropriate word sadly. I also checked my xp and money. 1915 xp, almost level 2 and 752 col nice.

I sigh to myself as I am neither level 2 and do not have enough money for that axe. I was doing good too, getting a decent amount and on my way to levelling until after the announcement yesterday...

-page break-

Yesterday...

The three of us headed off into the fields after we finished our breakfast to start grinding. We had it all planned out even the whole respawn route so we wouldn't have much time between each fight. However our plans were smashed, grinded and dispersed to the air when we left the gates.

All that we could see were people, literally tens of thousands of them all sitting round with the sounds of them cheering on a few hundred people fighting their boars. It was as if they were watching a game as they sat somewhere in the field watching the battling individual or party battled a boar. Once the boar was killed they all seemed to stand up shouting "c'mon" to the sky. after a minute or so the boar would respawn to the delight of some but to the sorrow of others as it hadn't respawned by them. I saw a couple of people trading things, bets probably off who got the next boar.

We stayed at the gate entrance peering round to try find somewhere less crowded, as if that was going to happen. So after a few minutes of fruitlessly searching for space we decided to go back to where we first met.

Walking over there we looked around at the spectacles going on which were quite interesting to watch but what interested me more was the forest a little ways off. There was space over there, a clean thin line of grass where no one dared to go for some reason but no boars spawned there anyways.

We arrived at the spot to see with no surprise a ton of people. Giving up on all hope of getting a comfortable space we went over to a circle of around 4000 people encircling around 150 battling parties. I say a circle but a bunch of the people sitting down were pretty much next to the fight making lots of little circles in the bigger circles in the big circle.

We threw ourselves down close to around 300 people with like 3 meters of space between us and them which was luxurious to us as this point. We watched the games progress, which was enjoyable. At the moment the one that interested me the most was a plump man with a battered old shield, more like the lid of a barrel and the way he treated it was no surprise it looked like that: he didn't have a sword so he just beat at the boar with his shield. Maybe he didn't have a sword because he spent all his money on some leather armour which looked pretty costly...looked worth it though as the boar gored him but he just laughed and kept on pummelling away at it. Soon he finished it off and pranced around getting cheers from the crowd as he gets his loot and sits down happily but sad as he is no longer doing anything.

While we were waiting for the respawn one of the guys chilling came up to me and asked if we wanted to make a bet with him. He was a scruffy guy with scruffy hair and really hairy legs and chest, because he didn't have his shirt on for some reason and his trousers had been ripped to shorts. He smiled at us with crooked yellow teeth which freaked me out a little bit making me think to not bet with this guy.

He looked a bit downtrodden when we denied betting with him but before he walked away I asked him on impulse if he knew why no one was going to the forests.

"Ya din't see it?" He exclaims surprised "Ah well you missed out on an 'orrible bit o' the morning" He strokes his wispy beard as if trying to look pensive before continuing on. "Ya see all o' them 'Beta Testers' went in there and we 'eard they were going to another town. So naturally many of us followed em. I din't follow cause that forest looked scary. People said I was wrong though and walked in. The 'owling of wolves and their screams told me I was right though. At first people went in alone but soon most of em went in full parties. According to some of us who stayed, their names wen't grey on their friends list. about 300 people went in from the start and around 'alf an 'our 1 came back crying and 'is clothes in tatters. Some guys took 'im back to town. After that we just stayed away from the forest."

We must have looked absolutely shocked because he told us "I know right" before walking off cursing that the boar spawned before he made bets.

We sat there feeling...shocked, totally and absolutely shocked that around 300 people died while we were eating breakfast. Thats quite a lot of deaths to ingest. As we sat there shocked a victory cry came from one of the fighters as he finishes his boar giving the crowd a thumbs up. This going to be a long day...

-page break-

3 hours later we are still sitting in the same place munching on some lunch while looking over our recent loot. Somehow we had 4 boars spawned in our area within 3 hours which according to the rest of the people was super lucky. Gwynevith even made a few hundred col by betting on every so often. I had gotten out of these 3 hours a grand total of 60 xp and 14 col. Only another 100 hours of this and I'll be level 2.

While I looked over my winnings the usual cheering quietened, then stopped causing me to look up in fear of someone being accidentally killed or something equally as horrible. Luckily I was wrong as everyone was fine just staring out behind us. I turned to see the man from this morning standing there, hands on his sides while he looked down at us. A good 50 men stood behind him imitating his pose.

"Hello there, seems like your enjoying the revelries" he smiled causing his scar to curve to look like a crescent moon. "But the way you're doing things we won't move from this spot for the next month, if that. I am Sarge" original I thought sarcastically to myself. "And I am organising our army so that were able to grind efficiently as possible. There are a lot of us right now, around 22,000 out in the fields right now so we need to cut that number down. To do that is simple...we split up into smaller groups for different times of the day...This is how its going to work: you are going to line up in one of 3 lines" he points to 3 men on his left, one wore a lime green headband, another a yellow and the third a black headband. "If you are between 0-800xp go to Green, 800-1600xp to yellow and 1600-2000 to black. If you are level 2 already line up in front of me. MOVE IT"

With that order everyone shuffled into line, no one went to line up in front of him. I went over to the black line and was surprised when Kane and Gwynevith joined.

"How are you guys almost up level. You should have close to 1000xp only by now" I stood there confused trying to do my maths

"Ah well while you were out there playing with boars I picked up a couple of town delivery quests which gave a decent amount." Gwynevith replied emphasising playing with boars with a wide grin.

"I did the same, that's how we first met" Kane stated factually

"We just happened to do the same quests and after running round for a while we decided to party up and go out into the field together"

"Hmm so whats your xp at now?" I curiously asked them

"1834" the said in unison

I pumped my fist into the air "Well it seems with my 1915 i'm ahead because I spent my time playing with boars as you said" beaming with pride and grinning at Gwynevith

We stood in line for a few minutes before we reached the guy handing out pieces of black cloth, which we made into sashes simply because it looked cool.

The rest of the day passed very monotonously as Sarge stated that they would start this routine tomorrow so as to keep things fair he said. Also we were told that we would be in parties of 6. Sort them out yourselves were his instructions and most people leapt at the chance to party with some of the cute girls, while others kept their distance still unsure whether they wanted to be in a party with strangers. We just sat down not really caring because we knew we'd be approached sooner or later, I glanced towards Gwynevith, sooner rather than later definitely.

It was a pain as the first 50 people were not black cloth but still asked mostly because they didn't notice our black sashes, too busy concentrating on...other things I concluded. in the end after those first 50 people all the other black cloths had made parties already and Sarge noticing this told us that we'll meet our other party members 3pm by the Monument. Once everyone had partied up and Sarge with his followers sorted out the outliers we continued the games. Sarge and co. packed up to move to another area while we went back to 'grinding'.

The rest of the day light was spent without getting another boar which was saddening and we stayed until night to see our up and coming opponents. At night the boars grew bigger in size, their eyes went permanently red and a line of spikes erupted from its back. Dire Boar was its name and it fought just like the normal boars but was a lot stronger as the full parties had to take one on and the battle took twice as long. After about 4 hours analysing the boars attack pattern and watching parties getting tossed around but still alive I stood up and gestured to the other 2 to go.

Many had done the same as those boars looked scary but a good 10,000 stayed there making the fields looks strangely empty but still overfilled.

The rest of the night was spent finding an inn, which we luckily found 3 rooms after our 17th inn for 5 col a night and we had some 1 col bread for dinner before hitting the sack.

-page break-

I trudged down the stairs yawning loudly as I enter the inn, find a table and plop down on the seat spawning some 1 col bread and munching on it. The inn is decently busy with people eating and drinking, some just gathering to talk and some getting rooms for the night.

I lounge on the chair still feeling a bit groggy when a hand pats me hard on the back making me jolt in my chair.

"Morning" says the grumbly Kane as it seems he too had alarm problems. He sits down next to me with his 1 col bread and I see that his hair is exactly the same, which I find pretty cool that it doesn't change, except for the fact that if someone had horrible hair when they put the Nerve Gear on then they're stuck with that, which sucks. I thought Kane looked quite groggy too and mildly annoyed by his waking up but that was nothing compared to the 5'0 raging woman who burst downstairs screaming "That bloody alarm clock! I'm going to kill the person who made that for they are pure evil"

The inn silenced in shock but with knowing nods they soon resumed what they were doing. Gwynevith drops into the seat across from me, rips a 1 col bread from her inventory and devours it angrily.

"Seems like someones got out the wrong side of the bed" I verbally prod at Gwynevith

She stops eating and looks up at me with a cold killers look hidden partially behind her curly hair making her truly look like she's ready to kill at a moments notice.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, just nothing" I cower under her icy gaze avoiding eye contact with the beast. Kane is pretending to look far into the distance not noticing the fuming woman in front of him.

We wait patiently as she finished devouring her third piece of bread, stood up and stomped outside without pause. We stumbled on our chairs as we rushed to follow her and once outside had to dodge and weave through a thick crowd who parted to make way for her. We quickly made our way over to the starting plaza and went up to the monument. I checked the time and it was 2:38, ok so we got a few minutes to spare.

Gwynevith stood on one side of the monument giving her killing looks to those who looked her way causing them to visible shiver and quicken their pace. I went up to the monument as I saw that it had words etched on it. Aaslieron, AavadaKadavra, Aangelb00ty And a ton more all going down into alphabetical order. I had a suspicion and walked round the monument to see that 3 sides were covered from top to bottom in names of players. I found Drake and also Drakeo. I also found some names that had been crossed out with their means of death written beside. For a few it was logged out and for many more it was killed by wolves. It had the date and time of their deaths too which I found a bit odd. On the last face of the monument were the words Memorial Stone etched in large letters vertically down it.

As I was looking at the quite hilarious names that some of the people chose as their username someone said "hey" and then said it again before I realised that it was directed towards us.

I turned round to see 3 people walking towards us, waving excitedly at us. The first who reached us was a tall, lanky looking guy with frizzy orange hair and freckles covering his entire visible body. He introduced himself as Xeno, the male version of Xena(1) I theorised and he confirmed it. A total nerd, kind of like me which was pretty cool but his blade was even cooler: he had gotten an npc blacksmith to reshape his curved weapon, a scimitar he bought and curved it more so that it looked more like Xena's rings. I admired his enthusiasm at keeping within his name but it looked like it wasn't going to be very effective in combat.

The people with him were twins,which they both confirmed simultaneously, freaky! Rosy and Scar but they asked us to call them Ross and Scarlet. Apparently they played opposite genders because they wanted to try being each other. Ross(Rosy) has smooth black hair reaching past his eye as it droops down past it, the ends are highlighted blood red which gives him the potential to look Goth if he got the right clothes on. He's quite muscular and normal height, his slim sword does not fit him much as he look more like the type to hold a shield but he too is trying to stay within character.

His twin sister Scarlet (Scar) has the same red highlights and same slick black hair but this time it reached down to her lower back which is impressively long. She is the one carrying the shield, a big shield too, and she is also wearing some studded leather armour. She's the slightly older one it was figured out because her twin brother looked absolutely inferior to her and 1 gaze from her made Ross's jokey nature brake hard and become serious.

They greeted us kindly enough but stayed well away from Gwynevith, which we explained was having a hard morning, to which she stared at us giving shivers freely to the party. With that note we exchanged friend requests and Kane invited them to the party.

We procrastinated around town doing repairs and restocking our food supply. Thankfully the axe is still there waiting for me so i'm quite happy as we wasted our day trying to find the shop that offers the best price for my boar hides. In the end I was able to sell them 6 a piece giving a good 198 col to fill my money pouch with.

-page break-

Finally at 8pm after we relaxed at a park and ate our measly bread while hanging off trees we walked over to the gate slotting into the growing crowd just outside the safety zone.

Sarge was out there with some of his followers waiting for us and when people stopped arriving he addressed us.

"I will now give you zone leaders who will give you your zone and manage a certain area of the battlefield. You shall stay there and kill until you are level 2. if you are level 2 by 6am then meet back here, if not try again tomorrow, give it your best men!"

"Hoah" we shouted before listening to the various men asking us to follow them to our designated area.

We got a small hill in the middle of the field which would hold 1 boar at a time. I look round to see everyone else has been given around the same space as there are not too many of us, around 5000 only.

We reached our hill and see the Dire boar spawn a few meters away. I was thinking that because there were 6 of us it would be easy. I was wrong however as without warning Ross and Scarlet charged towards the boar themselves leaving us behind.

Ross charged his sword into the boars face and leaped back as it charged angrily towards him. Scarlet using her shield two-handed jumped in front of Ross and took the charge head on. it looked like a good idea, it didn't work out though as the boars strength was higher and it blasted her back and she knocked into Ross sending him flying too. they were still on green however and they had halted the boar. We charged in: Gywnevith and Kane on the sides slicing a few percent off, me and Xeno in front accidentally blocking each other and being forced to dodge to either side as the boar charged us. The boar finished its charge only to have Ross slam his sword thick into its skull and hold on for dear life as the boar violently wriggled his head in pain and frustration. While it was distracted by the hanging Ross, we slashed at its flanks taking off around 19% of its health between us, making that now close to 30% total damage.

The boar finally dislocated Ross and his sword from its face and then twisted about its tusk raking Xeno putting him down to yellow while pushing him a few meters back. We all jumped back as step as the boar chose its target, Ross and charged towards him. Scarlet once again got in between them but this time Ross pushed on the shield too. The boar crashed into the shield but the twins held fast. We then dropped onto it from all sides.

Ross stabbed from behind the shield while the boar aggro'd onto him tried to furiously gore the shield to get to Ross. Behind the boar we came. Kane and Gwynevith hacked at its right side, Xeno from its left and me from behind. We hacked away at it dropping it down to red when it finally broke Scarlet's defences and trampled her down to yellow to get to Ross who tried to dodge but was impaled down to red. In a frenzy we continued to charge at it slicing its health away while Ross impaled on the boars left tusk cut away at the boar recklessly while slowly losing hp himself. The boar too busy once again trying to shake Ross off his tusk lost the last of its hp and burst into polygons dropping a dangerously low Ross to the ground, where we caught him just in case.

We congratulate each other and look haughtily at the 8xp and 2col awarded. We're going to have to kill a lot of boars at this rate. As we lay on the ground recovering hp we start to formulate a strategy to use in out next combat...

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The boar charged into the large battered shield which was steadfast halting the heaving beast in its path. Appearing from behind the shield were Gwynevith and Kane who deal a lot more damage with their two-handers than the rest of the party's weapons. They get continuous criticals with their attacks while Ross and me come from opposite sides of the boar and slice away at it. The shield holds as the boar gets madder and madder at being unable to reach but Scarlet with the help of Xeno hold the boar steady behind the shield While their hp is slowly grinded down. The boars hp quickly drops down to zero bursting it into little polygons accompanied with two pings as Ross and Scarlet level up to level 2.

"And thats everyone" I call out causing everyone to prance about in joy as we are now all level 2.

I levelled up after about 2 hours getting 3 stat points to spend, I held off on them because I have no idea what I want to put them in. I also advised the others to do the same just in case they need the points to spend later on. Kane had put 1 point into strength, Gwynevith put 2 into strength causing her to do modest amount more of damage than the rest of us. Xeno put all 3 into agility because he of course wanted to become agile doing flips and such like Xena. Ross put 1 into Dexterity and Scarlet put 1 into strength and 1 into vitality. So they listened to me to an extent.

I checked the time to see it was 5:49 so we just got everyone up which was lucky.

"How many boars did we kill in the end?" I asked my frolicking companions

"54" counted Kane

The number got a few ooh and aahs from the party as they fully realise they just spent the best part of 10 hours killing only 54 boars. I check my inventory to see what I've now collected. 3 boar hides, 1 tusk and 132 col along with 405xp which has put me up to 2320xp, sweet.

Almost dancing we return back to the Starting City and meld with the small group of around 70 people waiting for Sarge.

Sarge appears pretty much instantly from the field, his sword chipped in many places. He nods at the group before clearing his throat and sheathing his sword. I looked at my own battered sword: we wisely took a short 20 minutes off every few hours to repair our almost broken weapons so as to not repeat my fatal mistake again.

"Well done, it seems we have quite a few parties up to level 2 already and it seems that there'll be more tomorrow. However lets not think about that for you will not need to worry about this place anymore. Yes you heard me right, you will not need to be worrying about this place anymore because you will no longer be here. I have an important task for you people: find another town. To put it bluntly this place is too small and we need more places for people to grind to make it more efficient. That is why you will brave the forest and find another town. We know that there are level 2 wolves there and they fight in pairs. There are 13 parties of 6 gathered here, if 7 of you have fallen in battle then we will be forced to send more, do not die for you will bring others to death too. Fight like the warriors you are for you are the forefront of your army, do not disappoint is with your deaths. You have 1 hour to prepare, be ready to leave, Good luck!"

With that we headed back into town, bought 30 days worth of bread and water as well as repairing our gear. Since we were heading to the woods we decided to spend our hard earned col by getting what we could. We all put 400 up front for the Silvered Splitter whose damage was 6 times the normal two-handed swords and came with the bonus of 1 extra strength which was whistle worthy. That was reluctantly handed to Gwynevith who had to put her last point into strength to wield it properly. She looked damn scary with it because the axe was so large the handle stuck a whole 2 feet above her, the axe head covered her entire back.

We pooled the rest of our money in making it reach 1347 col and bought leather armbands, boots and trousers for everyone coming up to a grand total of 1300 col leaving us with 47 to split between us 1 col apart, I took 7 col.

I sold my 3 hides for 18 more col and kept the 1 boar tusk because it wouldn't sell for much and I felt it was worth something. I was given all 3 boar tusk swords, Kane got the spare two-hander and the others had their own spares.

With that we went to the entrance along with the crowds flowing out of town to do their morning grind. We however moved past the fields towards the edge of the forest where Sarge and most of the party's were there. As the last people arrived Sarge simply stated "Good luck" before having us send friend requests to one of his followers so they could keep track of us. With that done they left to help the morning grinders and we entered the forest.

**wow apparently I've gotten quicker as I can now write more in the same time woohoo. Guess that means ill be writing lots and lots.**

**So what do you think? brought in some new guys and the whole grinding situation is shown to you. They will grow with time as my starting 3 have already come quite far and are revealing new things about themselves every day! **

**Ah also about needing OC's, they're nice to have because its pretty hard making a ton of new characters all the time and I have a lot of people here 30,000 so i will probably meet quite a lot of people so i'll be racking my brains on this people.**

**next one will come out on friday! Hope to see you then and please review!**

**(1) Xena the Warrior Princess, classical badass fighter woman look her up,**

**-ChazRay**


	5. Chapter 4: The Wood of The Wolves Part 1

**I must be part wizard because... Ping heres another chapter for you all, enjoy!**

The twigs and leaves crack and crisp under our leathers boots as we walk along the red bricked road. The forest is oddly the opposite of what we expected: there were light coloured trees with bunches of leaves dangling off their branches above us. The sunlight shined through the gaps of the leaves bathing us in golden light warming our skin just like the real sun. The road looked newly made even though small branches, twigs and leaves have found their way onto the road one way or another.

Leading is Xeno as his Agility is the highest so he can scout a few minutes ahead, the rest of us stay in a tight knit circle that loosens up a little bit as the suns warm rays caress us. We have been on the road for 1 hour and we have encountered nothing but relaxing silence and the waving of the trees with the wind.

It was strange though that we were the only ones on the road, because there were a total of 13 groups who had all decided to not take the road deciding that the untrodden path of the forest may offer shortcuts and traps may be waiting on the road. I understand them as the others who went before us went on the road and they all died but the woods itself would be worse I would have thought.

However...I turned to look at Gwynevith who radiated anger and there was a large amount of space around her, maybe they decided wolves were less scary.

Well no time to think about that as the howling of wolves cut through the silence bringing us back from our happy and deluded state. Unsheathing our weapons we got into formation: Gwynevith took point while Scarlet covered our rear. Ross would cover Scarlet while Xeno and I took opposite sides of the road. Kane stayed in the centre ready to help whoever needs it.

Help was needed, definantly needed as a pair of wolves burst from the trees on our right pouncing on Xeno, who jumped sideways just getting a claw raking down his side for some hp.

No real tactics in mind everyone charged the nearest wolves as they break into our formation. Scarlet rushes to Xeno, her shield being raked mercilessly by the wolf. Ross leapt behind Scarlet his slim blade poking the wolf in the face for tiny sliver of health while Kane rushed the wolf's flank and chopped away at it with his sword. I charged towards the other wolf but Gwynevith got there before me her axe whooshing down and connecting with the wolfs neck. The axe then smashed into the ground leaving the wolf standing with a red pixelated line deep into its neck, its health bar equally as red.

The wolf bit at Gwynevith but she caught the teeth on her leather armbands making it less severe, still losing a decent portion of healtH however. Finally I got over to the fight and swung my sword repeatedly at the wolf but only 2 attacks got in as a large silver axe slammed into the ground in front of me fully cleaving the wolfs head. Our wolf burst into polygons and we turned to help the others and made short work of it. Well Gwynevith did as she sliced the wolfs flank causing its red hp bar to fully disappear and its body to fall into 2 halves before bursting into polygons.

She had slaughtered these wolves with a gleeful smile on her face. Shivers ran down our spines at her joyful smile at brutally splitting the wolf In half.

A ping went round the party with our rewards: 40xp, 6 col for me which was amazing in the xp department, a whole 20xp per wolf. Everyone looked excitedly at the xp as the amount of xp we got per kill almost tripled which was amazing. Now I understand why they didn't want to go on road, there would be lots of wolves to kill off road.

Kane being on the ball asked us if we wanted to hunt nearby the roads, we agreed wholeheartedly as it would take around 200 wolves to get us up level which sounds like a lot but that fight barely lasted a minute. The wolves hit decently hard but they have little health as their downside. Perfect grinding mobs.

We decided to split up into 4 and 2 where Scarlet and Gwynevith would take the woods left of the road as Gwynevith was a 3 hit killer and Scarlet can hold off the other wolf. Me, Kane, Ross and Xeno took the right side but we kept Xeno on the road so as to not lose track of it.

With that we started our hunt, the time was 8:24 and we would meet back up at the road in 4 and a half hours time. Also because we were still in a party we would get xp for the others kills As long as we stayed within a close distance.

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With our tank and main damage dealer grinding themselves, our party had severely depleted in both offensive and defensive strength and that showed almost instantly. The first pair of wolves we fought we split into pairs, me and Ross, Xeno with Kane.

I tanked the wolf aiming for its head aggroing it on me. The wolves attack pattern was charge and bite followed by double rake with its claws. I knew that. Because that is exactly what it did to me: biting onto my arm, my hand inside its jaw, then let go and raked me across the chest while trying to topple me to the ground. Luckily Ross came in saving my quickly depleting health bar by stabbing repeatedly at the wolfs neck instantly aggroing it. The wolf pounced onto him but Ross sidestepped only getting a single claw raking across his unprotected chest.

I charged from behind planting my sword between the wolfs shoulder blades making it whine on pain as I pushed it deeper causing small chunks of health to disappear from its hp bar. The wolf kept going for Ross who kept sidestepping piercing the neck of the wolf every time keeping its aggro on him. After a few minutes of dodging and swiping at the wolf from the side and from behind it finally with a last howl of displeasure burst into the tiny little polygons that make them. Without pause we jogged over to the others battle.

It had not progressed well as Xeno squirmed behind Kane his bar on a low red. Kane's bar was yellow and quickly getting drained as the wolf bit and clawed him agilely dodging the slow, powerful swings of Kane. Its hp was almost full, a few points missing due to lucky hits from both Kane and Xeno but no more.

We charged into the wolfs flanks as it went for another claw at Kane pummelling into it and sending it flying to the side our swords embedded into it. Kane using the opportunity, hacked downwards at the wolf as it stood up knocking a decent portion of health off.

The wolf now at yellow with 2 swords stuck into its side pounced onto Kane biting and holding onto Kanes right arm draining Kane's hp down to red. In a panic we rushed the wolf ripping our swords out of its side and hacking at it. Kane grabbed onto the wolf trying to hold it in place and Xeno held the wolfs hind legs fully immobilising vertically as we slashed and burst it into blue polygons...

Mentally drained, we dropped to the ground watching everyone's low hit points slowly recover. I checked my rewards tab to see what we got...my jaw hit the floor when I saw that we had somehow collected 160xp, 25col 1 wolf tooth. We knew that the girls we good this was crazy. They killed 6 wolves in the time we killed 2! Its like they went off on a killing spree but seeing Gwynevith after those 2 wolves determined those poor wolves to have been very unlucky to meet the mad Gwynevith.

I stood up and faced the guys looking beaten and downtrodden. "We cannot lose to the women! Yes they have better weapons and better armour but there are 4 of us! Our pride and dignity lies on the line as of now we are useless compared to them! We must become better or we will be weak in their eyes. I am not here to hide behind a shield letting the women protect me. I am here to become strong and protect our fellow female party members even if they don't need it, my pride as a gentleman depends on it. We are all members of the same party but as of right now we are not even remotely close to being useful, so we must work together and become stronger!"

The guys looked mildly shocked at my outburst but nodded their heads solemnly as I said what they were thinking, Xeno looked especially hurt as he believed he has been of little use to the party, which I do not disagree on, his weapon really is only for show.

"Well then we should formulate a battle plan" comments Kane as he stands up, retrieves his sword and sheathes it.

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The wolf pair charges the tightly knit group who face off the wolves and clash head on with them 2 members parrying the claws while the other 2 the jaws. Xeno slashed with Kane's boar tusk sword cutting a thin red line on both wolves and aggroing them on him.

The wolves break off from the others and pounce onto Xeno who dives towards the wolves and under them as they leap for him. The wolves then frustratedly turn and leap at Xeno again to which he dives under them again. This time the wolves land by the other party members who lay waste to the leftmost wolf: Kane and I hold down the wolf while Ross repeatedly crits the wolf to death. the wolfs partner continues to pounce at the diving Xeno who cuts it lightly a few times so as to keep aggro on him.

The wolf finally catches Xeno causing a glancing blow that trips Xeno up and has him lying under a very angry wolf. The wolf tears into Xeno who screams in alarm as his hp reaches yellow within seconds.

Repeating our pattern we tackle the wolf and immobilise it while Ross and Xeno slice it till it bursts into little polygons.

High-fiving around we sit down and have a quick break to let Xeno's health regenerate. I check the time to see it is 12:47, 13 minutes from our meeting time, guess we should head back to the road then. I tell everyone the time and they reluctantly nod, get up and we start walking back to the road.

The walk is a short one, about 5 minutes and we get there to see the girls have come back already and are lounging on the warm brick road waving at us lazily as we come out of the thicket.

"How was your hunting?" I ask the ladies

"If this game had blood we'd be covered head to toe" Scarlet replies her eyebrows furrowed deeply with worry and with thought as if she had been thinking about that for a while.

"If this game had blood we'd be covered head to toe in our own" nods Ross sagely at his fellow guy party members. We all nod at that.

"I think you guys would look awsome covered in blood" murmers Xeno to himself but still loud enough for everyone to hear

"Hey sis do you think i'd look cool if I was covered in blood?"

"Well you'd look like...a guy covered in blood"

"Ahh how very perceptive you are, a bit literal though. I'd look like some kind of badass monster slayer."

"Tell me that once you've actually killed something noteworthy, these wolves were easy peasy lemon squeezy. By the way how many did you kill in the end?"

"Umm... I lost count"

"52" Puts in Kane as he spawns and drops his loot onto the ground. "Lets put all the loot we gathered and split it equally" he suggested with a tone saying it was more than just a suggestion

Complying, everyone dropped their loot into 3 piles: pelts, teeth and others. Scarlet smiled pitifully at the guys before saying "98" as she dropped her loot. Gwynevith dropped her loot, back to her (hopefully) normal self as she grins cheekily at their 98 to our 52.

The piles ended up being as follows: the teeth counted up to 89, 59 pelts and a Wolf Tooth Sword alone on the third pile. Everyone took 15 teeth (14 for Gwynevith), 10 pelts (9 for Gwynevith) and the Wolf tooth sword was handed to Kane for it needed an extra strength point which no one else had but him.

After the sorting of loot we sat down for a luxurious meal of 1 col bread and 2 col water while Ross and Scarlet joke about their near death experiences (Mostly Ross's), Kane tried out his new sword, Gwynevith cleaned her gleaming axe and Xeno took a quick nap, mentally exhausted from the fighting. I opened my menu and checked my xp and col: we collected a total of 2960xp since we started our hunting in the woods and I was now at 5280, less than 800xp away from level 3 sweet. 482 col was now stored in my inventory along with my pelts, teeth and single boar tusk. I found it amazing how much of a leap these wolves gave, well honestly, here we could grind full out whereas back in Starting City we got limited space and a higher level opponent who gave barely any xp.

I lay down on the warm road and munch on some bread happily before turning my head towards Kane.

"So what's the plan?"

Kane keeps swinging his sword and replying with a word each slash "We, will, walk, down, road, till, we, find, a, town,"

Satisfied with the answer I go back to peacefully munching my bread. Sadly the universe does not leave me in peace as the howls of wolves come from the right side of the road, where we grinded earlier.

Everyone lazily gets up and ready their weapons but something, something feels off as the wolves howled from the road behind us after a few seconds. Then, howls from the road in front of us...multiple wolf pairs, strange that usually doesn't happen unless we walk into a mob spawn trap within a certain area. But we have been in this area for a while now so we should have set it off by unow unless...unless someone had already set it off before us...but then that means that whoever triggered the trap left the trap area, through foot...or death. Death seemed the most likely as there are multiple packs coming from multiple directions and the wolves do a lot of damage, even though easy to deal with in their pairs, if there are 4 or 6 of them at least 1 death would not be surprising.

I thought all this within seconds as my body exploded with adrenaline causing me to go at an accelerated pace. I glanced round to see everyone ready to fight the wolves probably not sure why or what is happening but this worries me as we might lose a party member even with Gwynevith and Scarlet...Though with 6 wolves only we might make it through. However the universe does not like me today as another pair of wolves howl from the left side of the road much, much closer.

"RUN!" I bellow at my fellow party members who give me a questioning stare as I jog off-road to the left. "RUN!" Kane bellows to validate my point while jogging close by. The rest of the members realising the threat that it might be jog after us, Xeno catching up the quickest with his faster jog thanks to his increased Agility. Scarlet took the rear her shield slung on her back as she jogs as fast as the system allows. Ross stays just in front of her and Kane roars at Gwynevith and Ross to take front as the howling of the wolves in front of us seem just round the next tree.

The pair of wolves appear a short distance off in front of us and bound towards us. Gwynevith takes one while Ross, Kane, Xeno and I take the other.

Gwynevith slashes at the wolf as it leaps at her slicing its legs off. Without wanting to slow down finish it off she continues on jogging.

The other wolf was more of a pain as it leapt onto Kane who bear hugged it and as the wolf gnawed on Kane's throat the rest of us hacked and slashed at it without slowing down which was surprisingly hard as the roots of the trees seemed to elevate almost catching and tripping us. Gwynevith came in and finished off the wolf with us, keeping Kane just on red health.

As if in response to the death of the wolf the howling of a few wolves pierced the air behind us, still decently far away.

We jog as fast as we can not caring where we run as long as its away from the wolves, as long as we go straight we should leave the trap area sometime soon and it has to be soon or those wolves are going to catch us.

As we ran through the forest it got thicker and less and less light seemed to shine through and even the wind was stopped by the thick canopy of the now darker skinned trees. The trees did not stand upright but bent hauntingly down towards the ground as if looking the humans below jogging for their lives.

A pair of wolves spawned over to our right however unlike usual mobs who only aggro when in a certain range or attacked, these wolves instantly aggro'd onto us.

I couldn't help but be impressed by the interesting coding of the trap: it would spawn wolves at a certain area and attack you until you escape the area and as an added bonus all other wolf mobs encountered would become part of that trap, so running away while it seems like a good option is probably worse over the 1 party member dying. I'm certain whatever other party triggered this trap was killed as well as those 300 people who tried to brave the forest too early.

The wolf pair who just aggro'd onto us bounded towards us and reached us within the minute raking away at Scarlets back, thankfully protected by her shield.

"Gwynevith, stay at point and do not slow down, rest of you to the back" roared Kane as he slowed himself slightly to be at the same speed as the more encumbered Scarlet.

We all did as he commanded and began a switching pattern: we would get hit a few times till our bar was yellow then switch with one of the others who was recovering.

As we focused on our switching making sure we only get battered around a bit while trying to parry or block the wolves while jogging at the same speed as Scarlet as well as keeping an eye out for sneaky roots to trip us up another wolf pair spawned and aggro'd onto us.

The new wolves leapt into the mobile fray forcing us to go one on one with the wolves with Scarlet blocking and switching with the most hurt.

This only lasted a few clashes though as the wolves backed off allowing us to get some distance and quickly disappeared behind the thick tree trunks. We continued our jog not letting up one bit.

"Oh that was getting nasty wasn't it!" Shouted Ross with a chuckle and a smile of relief on his face

"We are far from out of this yet" I retorted wiping the smile off Ross's face "They were just going to merge with the pack"

"Pack? theres probably only a couple of them wolfies follo—" The multitude of howls came at that moment as if answering Ross's question by drowning out Ross's words with their howls. We tried to run faster than the system would allow as the howling of the wolves was really close by.

"I'd say a bit more than a couple brother"

Ahead of us was a thicket of bushes and branches and Gwynevith smashed her axe into it blowing a hole big enough to jump through. We jumped through without losing precious speed and found ourselves in a large glade jogging over a field of grass. the sounds of battle echoing round the glade.

We saw in the distance on the other side of the glade a party of people finishing a pair of wolves. They spotted us jogging towards them and gave us a friendly wave. This turned into giving us puzzled looks when we threw our arms out in front of us while screaming "RUN!" at them. These looks quickly turned to horrified ones as howls pierced the air behind us and we glanced back to see a triangle of wolves burst from the thicket.

I could see that there were 14 of them chasing after us, more than I had thought but if its possible for us to get mobs to aggro instantly on us due to the trap why can't the trap do it itself. A truly brilliant piece of coding but being on the receiving side doesn't show it in a positive light to me.

The other party start jogging too keeping around 100 meters in front of us.

"COME HELP THE BACK LINE IF YOU WANT TO LIVE" roars Kane making me wince as he basically just shouted right into my ear.

The other party consider it for a second and seem to comply, the if you want to live part may have helped convinced them. they slowed down immensely allowing us to catch up and form a curved back line protecting our rear consisting of at the moment all 5 of our members and one of theirs while Gwynevith still took front.

The wolves reached us just as we left the glade their front wolf colliding with Scarlet's shield while the others dispersed and pounces onto the back liners. The other party had 2 shield users so our defence was decent but with 14 wolves pouncing, biting and raking their claws at the defending back line quickly depleted their health bars as they could only parry and block so much.

The wolves fell back then caught up and clashed again and again and again until our back liners hit yellow. At that point we all yelled "SWITCH!" before the next clash, switch and we went back to jogging normal speed while the new back liners went slower than Scarlet who was the slowest member with her big shield and decent armour.

Changing their tactics slightly only 8 of the wolves barrelled into our back line, the other 6 split into 2 equal groups and slowly lined up with us either side. We were forced to extend our back line to 1 more person each side, holding off 3 wolves each.

Another pair of wolves spawned and aggro'd on the left forcing another person to join the back line and Kane shouted for the other 2 to join too. Everybody took part in the back line, more like the line now with Gwynewvith slightly ahead looking for an escape route while hacking away at the odd bush to make a crude path.

Many of us were just hitting red, the shield users the only ones still on yellow. Kane yelled to shield users to defend with most of party while 3 people took health potions: Ross, Xeno and I take out a weak health potion and downed it watching our health regenerate slightly quicker. Thankfully the wolves only clash once every 20 seconds or so as they have to run back up to us after the clash which takes a short while

After 3 more clashes we switch back in letting Kane and 2 very low health members of the other party drink their health potions.

"I HEAR WATER" screams Gwynevith from ahead filling us with a tiny bit of hope; if we reached the water then we could escape the wolves. The area was surprising large for this trap but crossing water should get us out of the trap area.

As if the wolves understood Gwynevith they changed tactics again: the front 6 wolves kept attacking the back line while 10 of them went 5 a side slowly making an encirclement but staying away from Gwynevith and her big axe.

Kane shouted for Gwynevith to keep point and commanded the rest of us to spread thinly. The 3 shield users stayed as the back line while the rest of us split into a thin line of 4 our health bars hitting yellow but only just and for the shield users and 2 of the other party members their health was red.

The sound of running water became apparent quite quickly as we jogged as fast as possible towards the heavenly sound.

The wolves clashed with us once more the sides trying to slip past our thin defence line. The line buckled as there were more wolves than defenders but thanks to Xeno throwing his weapon like a disc, which worked well actually and sliced of a wolfs leg easing up the pressure on one side and Gwynevith veering to the other side to chop a wolf in half before continuing to take point. The line held...the wolves fell back and had to run back up to where we were giving us a moment of rest. At that point we could see it: a small river flowing barely a few hundred meters away.

Some started going back to their fastest pace but Kane screamed at them to stay in formation but that moment of the line breaking up is when the wolves struck. The shield bearers on around half of their red bar left were suddenly being surrounded as some wolves got inside the formation and started to close off escape routes.

Kane roared a Gwynevith to attack while Ross and I with all of the other party members slowed right down smashing into the wolves trying to block the path. The wolves hit the ground and the shield bearers were able to keep their fastest pace and we jogged on.

We formed a tight knit group as we kept at Scarlets pace allowing the wolves to get in front of us, however while Xeno, I and 2 members of the other party formed a semi circle back line protecting our shield bearers. The others created an arrowhead with Gwynevith up front and as we jogged they focused only on the one Gwynevith attacked killing off a wolf and creating space for us to continue jogging.

The wolves gave us a last clash biting, raking and snarling at us but the combined effort of everyone blocked and parried most of the blows, the ones getting through lowering the last yellow bars into low reds.

We charge into the water watching the wolves stop abruptly and howl at losing their prey. The water feels strange as it doesn't feel exactly real. But that is the least of our problems as we try to swim across with a decently strong current. without hesitation I unequip my armour and everything I have till i'm swimming difficultly but successfully. I see the others do the same and soon were all swimming in our pants to the other side.

After about a minute of swimming my hand claw at dry land as I haul myself out of the water and huff,puff and gasp for air even though I don't need to do it, however the mental exhaustion is physically affecting. I see the others do they same as soon as they get to the shore: they just lie there gasping for air.

Finally the 12th person reaches the shore and lands face first on the ground falling straight to sleep, his light snores bring a sort of peace to everyone...

**Damn that took long, well I've finally done it, part 1 anyways ahaha oh god, so much to write. I hope you enjoyed reading it cause I enjoyed writing it even though i missed my sleep but ah who needs that anyways :P**

**In all seriousness hope you liked it and ill post the next part tomorrow?!**

**cheers**

**-ChazRay**


	6. Chapter 5: The Wood of the Wolves part 2

After a minute or so of catching my breath I sit up and look around at everyone relaxing after our close encounter with death. In particular Gwynevith caught my attention as she was closest to me but also because the water droplets glistened on her pale skin. Her stomach was slightly round but light muscles were visible on her stomach too. Her arms were not quite athletically toned but still quite toned and her legs were similar too. She had her eyes closed making her look peaceful which was the best face I've seen her in today.

I wondered why I could see so much of her body, especially the heaving mountains that I just could not avoid looking at...I saw a thin strip of fabric going down her shoulders and ineffectively encasing her bust causing most of it to be in full view. Ah thats right, she also stripped down to her underwear to swim through the water... My faces goes bright red in embarrassment and start to turn away. My realisation comes too late however as Gwynevith opens her eyes and as if instinctually turns her head towards me, seeing me blushing bright red, gawking at her, I realise.

We make confused eye contact for a second before her eyes open wide in panic as she realises it and lets out a short scream, possibly making the situation worse. The scream breaks everyone out of their relaxing trance and put them on their feet, wearing nothing but pants. They all looked towards Gwynevith and immediately their faces drop as they see Gwynevith.

"STOP LOOKING AT ME" she screams

The guys snap out of it partially with her second second scream and turn away to give her some privacy, most having to grab their head with their hands and forcibly turn it away. I turn around also still sitting down trying to get rid of my bright red face but not getting a chance to concentrate as Gwynevith shouts at me.

"Why were you looking?" She asks with a voice seething with anger

"Well I was just looking around and my eyes just kinda got blocked by you"

"How could I possibly blo—" her eyes widen and her jaw slackens with realisation before screaming "You Pervert!"

Still facing away from her but feeling the heat of her anger at my naked back I try to explain as logically as I could.

"Well it is very imposing...it kind of draws you in"

The guys nodded and murmured in agreement, a few of them wiping their noses for some reason.

"Perverts the lot of you!" Gwynevith screams out at everyone before the sound of items materialising come from her. The words "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." Pelt at our vulnerable backs.

...The wind whistles sending a cold breeze across our chests causing goosebumps to appear on our arms as we stand there waiting patiently.

-page break-

"ok you can turn back now" she whispers reluctantly as the guys finally break position and turn back round. Scarlet had sneaked her way next to Gwynevith and once again wore her armour too and as we turned back she purred. I checked my ears to see if i'd gone deaf from the screaming but no they worked definitely purred and did so once more...towards Kane while giving him a wink.

Kane looked like a lost child, his composure as the hardened older man broke down as a display of emotions came across his face as if he didn't know how to respond. He ended up choosing an unnerved smile with a hand stroking the back of his head. Gwynevith was turning bright red for some reason and Scarlet chuckled so we gave them confused looks till Gwynevith dropped her glowing red face and while staring at the floor murmured something. We leaned in slightly to hear what she had said.

She suddenly burst out shouting "GET SOME CLOTHES ON". We stood there dumbstruck for a second before we simultaneously looked down to see us in only grey cloth boxers.

A flurry of activity as us guys felt self-conscious and re-equipped our armour under the gaze of Scarlet who roared with laughter at Gwyneviths's uncomfortableness.

Soon after we were all fully clothed though our armour was not in its best condition and I looked down at me beaten weapon seeing that it too would break in a while.

As we all stood there wondering what to do next Kane suggested thar we all say our names. Say our names why? Oh right I think as I look at the 6 strangers who we had accidentally got them caught up with us.

They were a group of young guys all wearing most pieces of the leather armour, some missing the arm or the chest protection. We divided into our parties and then started with their introductions

The first who introduced himself was a young guy around my age with medium length unkempt black hair. He had a slight shadow of a beard going well with his tanned skin and hooked nose. He held a curved sword with a small buckler dangling from his other hand. He bowed deeply naming himself as Allahddin. He didn't look too far off his name either so it fit pretty well.

The next introduced was an even younger guy going by the name of Eyrenman(1). Well that was quite the play on words but his egg shaped head along with his short flat brown hair did fit the name. He also held a shield along with a normal sword this time.

The third person had his golden hair slicked back accompanied by a golden stubble and sauntered over to us with twinkling blue eyes, bowed profusely taking Scarlet's hand and pecked it royally. "Charlesming" he said with a wink before letting go of her hand and spawning his spear with a sly grin.

The fourth stranger gripped Charlesming's shoulder moving him away from the shocked/amused Scarlet. The man hair matched Charlesming's but had a goatee instead. Their facial feature were similar along with their blue eyes but his manner of speaking set them apart. He spoke politely with a much more subtle tone of intimacy at Scarlet with a small wink sneaked in too, "Rubenhood". He nodded in acknowledgement before walking back to his group his slim sword knocking against his waist.

The next one was an albino guy who muttered his name. We didn't hear it the first time as he talked to the floor. Gwynevith being all friendly asked him to repeat it pretty please. He looked up at her and said Ga...Ga...Gagagaga...as his eyes widened and his head fixated on Gwyneviths top which had burst from its seams and with help from the wolves earlier teared a large hole in the top travelling down quite a way revealing a modest amount of her bust. She clicked her fingers in annoyance causing him to finish his sentence with a sudden burst of energy. Gastalf was what he called himself, his albino white hair fitting but the lack of any beard whatsoever was a slight disappointment. Gastalf was smaller than the rest of their party and I believe he was around 14 at most.

In mild embarrassment he fled behind his party who jeered at him while the last man, a 6'5 muscleman with his hair in an 'm' shape walked over to us. He took out his two-handed sword and pointed it diagonally to the sky with his other arm flexing struck a pose while saying "Hercheles" with pride.

Personally these guys seem awesome but one look at my party suggests they are a bit strange according to the mildly freaked out look my party is giving them.

Kane nodded at them and told them his name. Xeno said his excitedly and went to get his weapon to show it to them but the sad face he put on confirmed his losing of it. I wave friendlily naming myself as Drake. Ross and Scarlet struck a pose where Scarlet hid behind her shield peeking from the top while Ross stood slightly behind sword pointed past the shield. "Rosy and Scar they shout out in unison as if it were a battle-cry, then said "call us Ross and Scarlet" they said together plastering confused looks on the others faces as they slowly figured out who was who. Gwynevith walks up slowly towards the other party the handle of her axe sticking out ahead its silver shaft gleaming even without sunlight. She takes out her axe and holds it sideways in front of her, the aura of anger/embarrassment flowing out of her almost physically warming me. "Gwynevith" she said monotonously as she stared with killer eyes causing them to shiver. "Nice to meet you" she then followed up with, with a grin completely disrupting her aura and bringing the bubbly Gwynevith back.

the introductions done and everyone feeling a bit freaked/weirded out by the people they just met took a minute to think about who they just met.

"Lets move out, we should find a way out of the forest before nightfall" Kane suggested and we thought it was a good idea so we started to walk through the forest again.

-page break-

The wolf with a last whine bursted into its tiny blue polygons leaving nothing but a ring of weapons pointed in its direction. The wielders sheathed their weapons and starting walking through the gloomy woods.

The sun was low and only a few orange rays of light shone through the thick canopy dimly illuminating the 12 walking people armed with an array of weapons and mismatched pieces of clothing.

The rest of the day after being chased was dull in comparison only meeting another 8 pairs of wolves along our way. it was boring killing the wolves because with so many of us they fell in seconds, although 160xp and another wolf tooth was earned in that time which was great.

We were walking in a straight line in hope to finding the edge of the forest but no such luck as of yet. It was evening, 7:34 according to my menu clock and everyone was deadbeat tired. We had been awake for 24 hours in addition to most of them fighting or walking exhausted us inside and out.

After walking a few more minutes and no wolves attacking us Kane stopped and said we should make camp for the night. We went about orderly getting wood and then once it was all gathered we found out we had no way to light it. However it was still quite warm so we could live without the fire.

Everyone found a 'comfortable' space and after we decided who was staying on watch everyone fell to sleep pretty much instantly.

Xeno and Gwynevith were on first watch, Xeno because he had gotten in a few quick naps throughout the day and Gwynevith because she wanted to get it out of the way.

An hour later I was brought back into consciousness by Xeno as he shook me lightly telling me it was my watch. I thank him groggily and take position around the middle of the camp with my fellow watcher: the albino Gastalf.

I plopped down beside him and stared out into the dark forest.

"So" whispers Gastalf "hell of a day huh?"

"Yes let me see...12 hour grind then ran away from wolves and met a bunch of people with some bizarre avatar names"

"Why thank you"

"Im guessing you all know each other IRL?"

"Surprisingly we don't, we just played a lot together on MMO's and decided to all start SAO together. We've never met IRL because we never really asked to so we just became friends over the screen."

"Wow must have been surprising to see their real faces after the announcement, as you've known them for a while but can now put faces to their names."

"Nah it wasn't that surprising as we all made our avatars as close to ourselves as possible with a couple of boosts to the body type and such."

"I know what you mean, but you really missed out not seeing Gwynevith's avatar" I chuckle lightly

Immediately interested at the mention of Gwynevith he asks "Why?"

"Well she didn't have her y'know before and when she changed it was quite the shock to literally everyone around her"

I could see Gastalf noiselessly berating himself for not being there

"Well i'm glad the way she is now"

"Oh yes that showed quite obviously as you introduced yourself to them"

"I couldn't help it" he complains as his face goes bright red

"haha, I know what you mean, I believe all the guys do...so anyways what is with the inventive avatar names going back on topic"

"We used our IRL names and merged them with a suiting character that suits us."

"Thats brilliant but one of the guys is called Eyren, is that his name!?"

"Ill pity him from the bottom of my heart if it is but I'm hoping its Aaron or something similar. Guess he's a bit shy about using IRL names"

"Kind of breaking a taboo you guys are but in an interesting way at least...Gastalf. What moment of insanity brought you to come up with that one? thats just asking for Gassy to be your nickname."

"Well..it seemed like a good idea until it was pointed out that i'm the flatulent wizard by pretty much everyone who knows my name"

"haha! The flatulent wizard quite a title you got there. It really does waft across the tongue, I can almost smell it."

I rolled and laughed as silently as I could to avoid waking the others while Gastalf whispered "Hey stop laughing you, you magical lizard."

I stopped for a second before bursting into new fits of silent laughter. Gastalf stared angrily but soon started laughing lightly then rolled with me on the floor at the stupid nicknames we had given ourselves while making up new ones for the other party members.

After a while of this my sides burned in pain from laughing too much and I had to stop. He soon joined me wiping tears from his eyes and sat back down beside me.

"Well that was something Gassy"

"Yes, yes it was Lizard"

We tried not to laugh to keep our sides from further pain and settled with cheeky grins at eachother.

"I wonder how everyone will think of their new names"

"Well I know they'll find that yours stinks"

"It really does suck to know that i'll be likened to farts for the rest of the time that i'm stuck here."

"Well at least its...unique"

"Guess thats the bright side I suppose"

Chuckling as quietly as we could we trade our journey so far in this world. His was normal with chilling in town and grinding then us meeting up. He was really shocked about my fist battle with a boar which I found his expression hilarious. We chatted about a couple of other things. Mostly just to get to know each other a bit more and I found out that even though he looks deceivingly 12 he's actually 16.

after our hour of animated whispering was up with nothing disturbing our camp we went to wake up Kane and Rubenhood.

-page break-

A shout threw me back into consciousness and I open my eyes to see Kane shouting at us to wake up and us doing so. The howls of wolves pierced the air from the left side of our camp and we readied ourselves to kill off the wolves. I glanced round to see everyone tensed up and gripping their weapons tightly, why were they making a fuss over 2 little wolves?

the 2 'little' wolves burst into our camp snarling. oh right, its Night time I remembered in terror as I saw the 2 Dire Wolves twice the size of the normal wolves, turned blue and a line of spikes protruding from their backs.

We charged one each, our party taking the right one while the other party took the left. The Dire wolf attacked the same as the other wolves but did so with a lot more strength sending the blocking Scarlet flying with a swipe of its claws bringing her hp close to yellow.

Kane charged in slicing at the wolfs neck taking a minuscule portion of the wolfs health. Ross, Xeno and I came from the other side our swords slicing but the wolfs bar did not move down at all. The Dire wolf being higher level than the normal wolves would obviously have a higher defence but this was just ridiculous, we literally did 0 damage between the 3 of us! Thankfully Gwynevith sliced her axe in taking a visible portion of health but much less than usual causing the wolf to pounce on her.

Fearing we would lose our only damage dealer as she falls underneath the wolf and screams as the wolfs claws rip through what little armour she has, we rush towards the wolf and each take a leg and pull.

The wolf pulled in 4 directions drops heavily onto Gwynevith who lets out an "oomph" as her hp hits red. Scarlet helps her out from under blocking the wolfs snapping jaws while we struggle to keep the wolf flat on the ground.

Gwynevith standing once more collects her axe and start chopping away at the defenceless wolf while we hold it as it struggled to free itself while howling in pain.

After 7 critical hits from her axe embedding itself in the wolfs neck she finally lobs the head off bursting it and the wolf into polygons and we turn to help the other group. The other group seeing our tactic work did the same thing and had Hercheles and Charlsming striking the wolf for minuscule amounts of health.

With the help of Gwynevith they finish off the wolf soon and we groggily head back to sleep after collecting our 20xp.

Waking up without the alarm was nice for a change as I woke up to the silent woods. I checked my clock to see it was only 5am, still night time technically. I stood up, yawned and stretched then noticing Xeno and Kane on their second watch waving good morning.

I went round waking everyone up bringing a few complaints but on the whole they were relieved for the non-alarm wake up. I left Gwynevith asleep though and although the whole camp was awake everyone stayed clear due to not wanting to meet the morning Gwynevith and for sake of not giving the other party we are travelling with nightmares.

The camp munched on their 1 col bread and woke themselves or in Xeno's case took a quick nap. The forest was still dark as night and it would have been impossible to see anything if this were not a game so we luckily could see in the dark, albeit not as well as in the day but good enough.

The camp bustled with activity as people stretched their limbs, messed around with their menus or ate. Soon the morning sun rose, only known to us by the thin rays of orange light coming through the gaps in the canopy. One such ray shone on Gwynevith's face and she made a small groaning sound. The whole camp stopped and waited with bated breath as Gwynevith turned to the side moving her face out of the sun. Sighing in relief we all went back to doing whatever we were doing but were soon stopped by a loud yawn from Gwynevith.

She opened her eyes and stood up slowly her curly hair covering her face and her eyes glinting behind them as she rises zombielike. Once stood she pushes her hair away with a "morning" before stretching her limbs. Our breath returning to us in a collective sigh we finish up our breakfast.

Kane waking up Xeno told us that we were heading out in 5 minutes. With a last check on our inventory and grumbling at our beaten up weapons we then head out.

-page break-

The morning had gone by decently uneventful with only around 18 encounters with wolves which were decided quickly in our favour. The woods had gotten a bit less thick allowing more light which gave us a small acknowledgement that we are going the right direction.

We stopped for lunch in a small clearing munching on our slowly depleting supplies of 1 col bread and 2 col water, however we had bought a lot so we should be find for at least a few more days.

After lunch we made sure everyone had a usable weapon and had to switch everything around a bit: Gwynevith had to keep her axe in the inventory for it had received a large crack earlier and and its durability is almost out. She was given the less battered wolf tooth sword while Kane took my boar tusk sword. Both me and Xeno were out of weapons along with Scarlet who had to hide her very battered shield so as to not lose it. The other guys fared around the same with Charlesming on his 3rd spear and everyone on their second weapon of their choice. We kept our armour on however as it may save our lives even if it does get destroyed.

Continuing our lost walk through the forest we fight another 6 pairs of wolves killing them with ease keeping strict vigil on our weapon durability. After another few hours of trekking through the slowly brightening forest and we stop once again to make camp while bathed with dim orange light.

We don't waste time collecting wood but flop down instantly with mental tiredness as our bodies don't stay tired after a few minutes of rest.

Keeping the same watches as last time we all lie down in a circle and munch on our 1 col dinner, then find our sleeping spots and proceed to do so. I don't sleep instantly as I listen to Ross telling jokes to whoever is awake, which turns out to be pretty much everyone as we all listen to him crack an egg joke then one about an elephant and its trunk at the airport. The jokes themselves were not that funny but it helped me relax and became good fun when everyone starting presenting their own jokes.

When it is my turn I find myself under immense pressure as Allahdin just before me had wiped dirt into everyone jokes with his three men and the Genie joke. Feeling the pressure put onto me to come up with something better I think frantically back at the thousands of jokes that I had ever heard of and read but only 1 came to mind...

sighing in defeat after trying to find a better one I wet my lips and begin."A seal walks into a Canadian club. Ou—"

The howling of wolves interrupts but surprisingly sounds like they finish the punch line. I turn and roar at the howls "Why'd you steal the punch line?" Earning a ripple of laughter from everyone with a clap before they ready for the 2 Dire wolves to come.

They howl once more, this time louder, a lot louder as if more voices had joined in. The multitude of howls sound familiar, oddly familiar and I realise all too soon with dread.

They have caught up...

**A finally chapter done, jeez I have a hard time with dialogue but at lasts its done and out, also New Characters! don't know how those names ever got into my head but thank god they did cause I was**** rattling my brain for hours to get some names.**

**ok gotta say that I took 2 days to make this one cause my weekend is pretty busy. **

**Last part of the Wood of the Wolves will be up tomorrow so be there!**

**Also (1) Eyren means Egg.**

**-ChazRay**


	7. Chapter 6: The Wood of The Wolves End

Bursting through the trees came a ragged bunch, their severely chipped weapons gripped tightly in their trembling hands. The moon shone brightly lighting the jogging figures revealing their terrified faces to the sky. The howling of wolves pierced the air behind them causing them to huff and puff to try force the system to allow them to jog faster.

To our disappointment it did not and we remained jogging at a slow pace, the multitudes of howling getting progressively closer. Our more heavily equipped members strayed behind while the more agile one raced slightly ahead. The forest shining with moonlight revealed a pair of Dire wolves materialised close by and aggressively rushed towards us.

"Stack!" barked Kane and with split second reactions we formed a multilayered wall, the shield bearers as the front while us damage dealers behind.

The pair smashed into us but our wall held and the shield bearers lifted the wolves onto their shields with the help of the row behind while the large weapon wielders hacked away at the wolves. The wolves help in place could do nothing but whine and snap with their jaws as we slowly chopped away at their health.

After half a minute they both shattered into polygons and immediately our speed went back up to our normal fast jog as the weight of the wolves had slowed us down quite a bit.

We jogged on for a few minutes aware of the silence as the howling of our pursuer had stopped. Not letting up the pace we jogged on in confusion and fear.

Gradually a sound grew louder and louder until it was akin to a mild tremor. The beating of paws on the earth drummed behind us but no howls as of yet bringing us deeper into our fear and confusion.

The steps became so loud it sounded as if they happened right behind us and as if on cue to that thought an arrowhead of dire wolves appeared from within the trees. The air ripped apart and my ear drums screamed as all our pursuers howled simultaneously.

I took a quick headcount my suspicions confirmed as all 14 wolves that had chased us to the river are once again chasing us. It seemed as though we did not leave the trap area by crossing that river, just delayed their coming.

I remembered something and found it strange that only 14 wolves were chasing us; the wolves themselves would gather all wolves that spawned close to them to join, so that must have meant that nothing spawned along their way so there were no players along the way. At least I can rest easy on not mob training(1) someone.

With that off my conscious I am ripped back into consciousness by Kane who roars "Run! Run! Run!" At everyone as he jogs as fast as he can.

The wolves bay and howl as they slowly make their way towards us, the trees hindering them slightly as their larger and wider forms don't fit so easily. That might have been our saving grace as it buys us time to think of a plan, albeit only a little time due to the thinning of the forest giving more space to run through.

I jog up to Kane and shout as quietly as I can "WE GOTTA SPLIT!"

Shock and horror filled the faces of those around me as they think the thought of splitting up and on some of their faces their expression of thoughtfulness on the idea.

"DESPERATE TIMES NEED DESPERATE MEASURES!" I simply state to which some of them nod agreeing.

Kane burrows his brows into his face in thought for a few seconds then with a sigh roars "EVERYBODY LISTEN UP! SPLIT INTO YOUR WATCH PAIRS!"

With the order we slowly jog our way towards our watch pairs, in my case Gastalf who is running along with Scarlet but speeds up to reach me.

The wolves snarl and their white teeth gleam in the moonlight. They are literally seconds away the few meters of ground between us being closed quickly.

"SPLIT!" Roars Kane at the second the lead dire wolf rakes Scarlet back causing her to scream in fear as her chest armour bursts into polygons. That is the last thing I see and me and Gastalf burst off to the right in hopes that the wolves would not follow us. As we disappear I see the rest of the groups meld into trees in all different directions and the wolves stopping momentarily.

I lose sight of the wolves through the trees but remain at my full power jog as the wolves would aggro onto a target soon and the chase would be on again.

The revitalised howling of the wolves confirms they have chosen their targets and the howling getting louder confirm they have targeted us.

Soon they come into view as we jog across the moonlit forest, 6 of them had decided to follow us their tongues waggling hungrily towards us as they inch closer. Fear welling up inside me I rip open my menu and un-equip my clothes and place my battered sword in my inventory. If I am caught the pathetic amount of armour I have on and my half broken sword will be of no use.

The small movement boost feels almost ecstatic as the wolves still moved closer yes, but slower which bought me some time. Gastalf realises my small speed boost and he too strips down.

The 2 of us run lightly through the forest with a pack of wolves bearing down on us in only our underwear (and our boots because running without them would hurt too much). The wolves inch closer second by second until their hot breath blow onto our bare backs and my brain in hyperactive mode lights up with an idea that just might save our lives.

"CLIMB A TREE!" I roar as Gastalf who jumps slightly at my sudden outburst but turns directly for a tree with a low hanging branch. Doing the same we charge towards our chosen trees as the claws of a wolf rake across my back leaving digital red lines across my back.

The tree I chose loomed in front of me within seconds and mustering all the strength I could find I jumped arms outstretched onto the tree. I flew up barely a metre and crashed onto the trunk of the tree and gave it a deathly hug. The wolf behind me startled by my sudden jump crashes into the trunk causing it to howl in pain as a small portion of its health disappears. Another pained howl confirms that Gastalf made the jump too.

Without wasting precious time I climb the tree as quickly as I could while holding tightly. Luckily the wolves do not immediately start jumping and tearing at me as they first have to stop but they were in such close quarters that they smacked into each other tripping them to the ground.

Reaching a low branch I place a foot there precariously and the wolves start jumping high their teeth scratching the bottom of the branch thankfully not reaching me. Deciding it was for the best I continued to climb higher leaving the dire wolves howling below as I finally reach a branch similar height to the rest of the forests trees. Relaxing slightly I sit on the branch while still holding onto the tree trunk.

I glance round and see a relieved looking Gastalf as he adopts a similar position a few trees. He swipes his right hand down and shouts "Message the others" and does so himself. I swipe open my tab and send a 'quick climb trees' to my party hoping they are still alive to use it.

The wolves had stopped howling and in curiosity I look down. My tree groans and shakes violently almost ripping me from my seat as 4 wolves below bang onto it with their massive paws using their strength to slowly push the tree. Some of the trees roots become visible as the wolves continue to push the tree. Fearing the worst I turn round facing another tree about a metre and a half away while gripping my own trunk to keep hold against the violent shaking.

The tree gives a last groan and my vision slowly falls backwards. Pushing hard against the trunk I run up the branch and leap into the air. I drop quickly onto the next tree trunk losing a metre or so of height but quickly right that by climbing up the tree again.

Once again after a minute or so of climbing I perch myself ready to jump when I hear a groan from a tree slightly away and see Gastalf leaping into the air and smashing into another tree trunk. His head collides with the tree giving me a thought that that must hurt but Gastalf is not fazed and grips tightly his tree and climbs up.

I check my health bar to see it regenerating to 97% and continue ever so slowly. So each time we jump we will lose a bit of health on collision but thats ok as long as we don't fall we won't die.

My new tree gives a loud groan and inches backwards. I ready myself for another jump to a close by tree dreading the long night to come.

-page break-

"Oomph!"

I whack into a lower branch barely managing to grip on as I slip off. The wolves baying with hunger and frustration jump at me from below but I am up too high. Slowly I pull myself onto the branch holding it as tightly as my fingers could go. Thankfully the numbness of my hands disappear within a minute or 2 of not using them to hold onto something with a vice like grip so I have been able to successfully hold onto things.

While pulling myself up with a decisive groan "Draaaake!" someone roars behind me and I glance behind me to see Gastalf leaping from his falling tree towards me. Without a second thought I wrap my arms around the branch and swing my legs out towards him.

He grabs my legs and instantly I my left shoulder cracks audibly and I feel as sharp pain that dulls and disappears quickly. Gastalf had successfully gripped onto my leg and now dangled helplessly with large, hungry dire wolves below. They jump and one grazes Gastalf's boots with its teeth before dropping back to the ground.

We hung there in our grey underwear and leather boots, Gastalf's legs and arms wrapped around my legs and my Arms wrapped into place on the branch. I tried moving my fingers but no response from either arm. Thankfully this game has pain dampeners.

The wolves below continue to jump and try to stick their jaws into the dangling meal, however we are too high for them. The stop trying after a few moments and turn towards the tree trunk and charge to unroot it and topple it.

That was our cue and I swing my legs side to side gaining momentum while the tree groans at the savage wolves pushing it violently. I fling my legs upwards along with Gastalf who grabs onto the branch with a bear hug, my legs safely underneath him.

He crawls quickly to me, places his feet on my shoulders while gripping the branch tightly and jabs my shoulder with his feet with a resounding crack once again causing a sharp pain in my shoulders. I wiggle my fingers in appreciation before he crawls over to the trunk and grips it tightly while I follow him close behind.

The tree gives a last deep groan and starts to drop, with that we run along the branch against the increasing gradient, jump and land with an "oomph" on another tree close by. I land first once again and Gastalf lands on my back and half gripping me and half gripping the trunk confines me between him and the trunk.

The wolves somehow not tired of this go straight over to our new tree and start to bash on it with all their might. They don't more than a few hits on the tree before with a howl the spikes on their backs retract into their bodies which compress and shrink back to their normal size. The wolves are back to normal, so it must be daybreak.

One tries to smash onto the trunk but accomplished nothing. The others tried but they too accomplished nothing. With a last disappointed howl they flee back into the trees and out of sight.

Once gone we let out a huge shout of relief as we burst into exhausted laughter. Climbing up to a branch for safety's sake we sit facing opposite directions, legs dangling enjoying the warm orange light shining through the trees onto our tired faces.

"Well thats one way to cause deforestation" exclaims Gastalf with a whistle.

I turned around to see how many trees we toppled. A low whistle escaped from me too: the forest seemed to be divided into 2 as there was a large line of fallen trees splitting it into the middle. Some trees leaned on ones we had not jumped onto but only a minority as most lay fully uprooted on the ground. It looked like someone drove a bulldozer or 2 side by side ramming into the tree. Quite the deforestation we caused.

"Imagine what the other's deforestation line would look like" comments Gastalf. Even though we started on 2 different trees our deforestation line remained oddly straight which was mildly surprising as I would have expected it a little more zigzagged.

"Give it a few days with all of us together and we might clear out the whole forest" I say with a mild grin at the thought for if possible I would not like to have to repeat that experience. "Talking about the others, we should message and meet up with our leaders"

"Our leaders? You mean your leader, I'm my party's leader"

"Come again?"

"I am my party's leader"

"Could you repeat it again? Im sure I heard you calling yourself leader but I must be hallucinating from the lack of sleep"

"No I really am, seriously"

"How, just how is that possible. I mean I can see Rubenhood or Hersheles, hell even Charlesming as leader, but you?"

"Yes oddly enough I am"

"Wow they must really trust you, or are somehow worse than you in terms of leading"

"Of course they trust me, well I hope they do but yes I am a good leader"

"Why'd they pick you? I mean you don't look imposing and stand out in the wrong way as shown by your introduction to Gwynevith. What made them choose you as leader?"

"Well mostly because of my...organisation skills"

...

...

"That was unexpectedly usual. Thought you were going to confess they picked you because you could burp the whole alphabet in one go or something or the sort."

"I know the elvish language if that gives me any points"

..."Damn, thats all I can say to that one."

"I've been trying to teach the guys some of it but I think I blew their minds after the first 20 minutes of teaching them, sucks would've been cool to have our own secret language that almost no one knows."

"Maybe you could persuade some of my party to learn it, i'm sure Gwynevith would be happy to spend some alone time with you"

"Y-Y-You think so?" Gastalf blushes and the system turns his face bright pink

"Possibly, I have no idea what she's thinking pretty much all of the time so theres a chance."

"Sweet! Ok we should message everyone to come here or we will be sitting here talking about my questionable leadership abilities all morning"

nodding I flick open my menu and scroll down my friends list: Gwynevith, Kane, Scarlet, Ross...I go back to the top and check again: Gwynevith, Kane, Scarlet, Ross. Xeno is not on my friends list for some reason...he seems to have deleted me off of his friends list but there is no reason for him to do that...unless there was no Xeno to be friends with.

Terror gripped at me at the thought of the possibility of Xeno being dead so I turn over to Gastalf to see him shaking like a leaf in fear. The possibility became a reality after seeing Gastalf's reaction as I can guess the same thing is happening with his friends list.

My shaking hands missed the message button a few times but I soon managed to press the button and with many deletes formed a coherent sentence: 'Come to me and Gastalf, we had 6 wolves so very tired. Use friend tracker to find us.' I rewrote it word 4 times and with the last one off, the last of my adrenaline left me sending my exhausted mind into a dreamless slumber while gripping onto the branch.

-page break-

"Hey Drakey what are you doing lying on that branch? The grass isn't wolf infested y'know...for the moment anyways" the familiar voice of Scarlet coerces me back into the 'real' world and I answer with a tired groan.

"Two teenage guys" starts the voice of Ross "lying in the tree" continues Scarlet "s-l-ee-p-i-n-g!" They say in unison with a chuckle

With that I open my eyes and sit up on the branch dangling my legs off the edge. "Man...I thought I'd seen the last of your 'lovely' faces, those wolves were just too slow."

"They really weren't, my shield is polygons in the air as our wolf caught me while climbing. I guess i'm really lucky to have had that shield or it would be me floating in the air."

"Only 1?" I exclaim in dramatic shock and horror "we only had 6 nothing too dangerous." I grin widely at their truly shocked faces.

"You must have had quite a night then!" comments Ross

"Yes, we spent it causing deforestation" I point towards the long line of trees fallen to the ground.

"Well that explains it" they say simultaneously

"Hey...Gastalf, right? You okay buddy? Looks like you've not slept a wink." Questions Ross.

Gastalf croaks out a "I'm fine" while visibly shivering showing that he is obviously not so.

I sigh, I wanted to avoid it, make it seem as though nothing had happened until no one else comes but with Gastalf fully aware of his party's 'losses' and on the verge of tears...no his eyes look slightly puffy, he has already shed tears while I slept. Ross and Scarlet seemed to not be aware of it so I decided it would be best for them to know.

"Hey Ross, Scarlet" my joking façade cast out into the wind releasing the ominous feeling locked up inside me. They notice the change and their smiles drop into confused and worried faces. "Open your friends list."

They comply and Ross exclaims "hey, Xeno's missing why's that?"

Scarlet with a much more worried expression after Ross said that looked back up to me "mine too...does this mean...?"

I nod my head slowly causing Scarlet to drop down to the ground in disbelief and sat there hugging her legs with a look of shock on her face. Ross takes a few seconds longer but when he does finally realise what I mean he too sits down on the ground and puts a comforting arm round his twin sister.

They sit there for a long time tears streaming silently down Ross's face while Scarlet openly sobs into his shoulder. Gastalf looks forward at the forest in front of us but his eyes see nothing as he seems dead to the world. I am not quite over the shock but I have had more time to process it. Xeno is dead and by Gastalf's demeanour someone is dead in his party too.

For a while nothing happens till over on our right appears a golden haired man with it slicked back and a golden stubble. He drags his spear in one hand and carries a slim sword in his other. His twinkling blue eyes twinkled with tears as he trudges his way towards us.

As he walks towards us, Scarlet silences and we all watch him intently and with pity. He makes his way to almost right under me and collapses to his knees, the weapons clanging to the ground. Tears streak freely from his eyes and his sobs echo lonely around us. We all watch in sorrow for his loss as he cries his heart out.

Gastalf drops from the branch, walks over to Charlesming who looks up at him tears covering his face and hugs him. He hugs him with no words, no emotion on his face but the hug spoke loudly to us all. He hugged him as a fellow friend, a fellow griever sharing the pain of Charlesming's loss.

They hug for what seems like an eternity the rhytmic sobs our only counter of time. The sorrowful reunion if broken after some time by the entrance of Kane carrying Gwynevith like a child who is sleeping but the wet streaks down Kane's shirt suggested her way to slumber was not a peaceful one.

Kane looks up to me and states with a voice as calm as he could muster "Protect our women, right?"

I nod in understanding: Xeno is gone...forever.

With that Kane placed Gwynevith with utmost care onto the floor and turns to Gastalf who is still hugging Charlesming and rightly does so as Kane's shake of his head sends renewed sobs into Charlesming while Gastalf hides them away from his face letting them only show in his action.

After a few minutes Gastalf detaches himself and once stood back up offers a hand to Charlesming, who takes it then picks up his dropped weapons. With that Gastalf slowly walks in the direction away from where we came, only stopping after a few seconds and turning round to answer the unspoken question. "No one else is coming".

We follow on silently, Kane carrying the sleeping Gwynevith while Ross and Scarlet stay at the back as if guilty they had both survived. I end up walking alone because although I have been with these guys for the past day and them dying affected me though it wasn't as bad as what they feel as they had known them for a long time.

As we trudge along a wolf pair spawns close by and aggro's onto us. Although in mourning we have not given up on life and we equip our weapons (me and Gastalf equipped our clothes a before we reunited) ready to fight the wolves. Kane reluctantly wakes Gwynevith who upon awakening sees the wolves charging our small group. As if in a frenzy she leaps out of Kane's arms, equips her badly beaten axe and with a scream of rage slices it down onto one of the wolfs neck. The wolf howls in pain and they both turn towards her but the first one bursts into polygons through Gwynevith"s second swing that came much quicker than usual.

The second wolf pounced on her as its partner died smashing into Gwynevith and pinning her to the floor. It then proceeded to rip at her with its jaws but stopped at the barrage of blows from Charlesming and Gastalf's battered weapons. It loosed it grip on Gwynevith and turned towards its new attackers but howled and burst into polygons after only getting a single swipe in as Gwynevith's axe smashed into its stomach.

Without a word we closed our pinging rewards screens and continued on.

-page break-

The wolf wails as a 2 handed sword beheads it. The owner of the sword, Gwynevith moves on without pause. The forest has gotten lighter as the sun was now directly overhead but also because the trees became wider apart allowing more light through the canopy.

The ping of a level up comes from Kane and Gwynevith who both swipe it away uncaring like I had done earlier, focusing on finding a way out of the forest. That way soon comes as we spot a road up ahead; the road was a red bricked road just like the one we started on. opening my map I see that we are further on the empty map with a mostly straight line from our coming off of the road to this new road filled in.

We step onto the road and move on it undisturbed by wolves. This walk lasts for around an hour before the forest finally stops and we walk out into an open field With a small village in the distance in the middle of the field, the road leading to its gates.

With a small burst of joy although nothing compared to our overwhelming sorrow we walk a tiny bit faster towards the village.

As we get closer we can see a small stream of people heading in and out of the village: their armour shined in the sun for most and their weapons looked above the average we had seen, albeit not as good looking as Gwynevith's axe but certainly better than the rest of our parties weapons.

We walked towards them and as they saw us with the air of depression hanging over us heavily the human stream stopped flowing and they looked us with a mixture of emotions ranging from confusion to awe to pity, pity showed on all. Their faces as they realised through our equipments state and our expressions that we had gone through something terrible.

We stepped into the town's boundary and with a ping a screen appeared in front of us

'Entering Safe Zone. Welcome to Horunka'

**Phew that took a while, sorry about the late post but life's restricting my time Atm but its getting back on track slowly so Ill have next chapter up by Friday.**

**Welcome to Horunka and hope you enjoyed? (Not sure if its correct that you could enjoy the deaths of Xeno, Eyrenman, Rubenhood, Hersheles and Allahdin.)**

**May their souls rest in the Wood of the Wolves.**

**-ChazRay**


	8. Chapter 7: Welcome to Horunka

**Hey so sorry about the late post but Halloween literally round the corner been busy with a bunch of stuff but its back on track and here it is, enjoy!**

BANG!

The once quiet room floods with the noise of chatter, laughter and general mingling from players downstairs. Barging into the room is a young man with messy brown hair and muddy brown eyes who wears an untouched set of leather armour, except there for the head gear. The man wears a sword on his side, sheathed into a battered scabbard.

Drake slams the door shut ceasing the external noises instantly and stomps across the room and flings himself onto the hard bed. He furiously beats his pillow but after a moment drops his head onto the pillow deciding that he can't change it for the better.

I lie on the bed looking towards the dark ceiling but none of that darkness welcomes me to my sleep. Thoughts swirl along the edges of my mind and giving in to the boredom restlessly allow my thoughts to occupy me.

It's been almost a week since we got here but it still feels like we just arrived. I have accomplished nothing, literally nothing within the past week, hell I haven't even explored the town yet and its only a couple of houses big. I have not gotten up level or even talked to anyone really, not even my party. Well we would talk at breakfast if they bothered to make the effort to get out their rooms but even then it was like trying to have a conversation with a wall, not in any way, shape or form, fun.

Was there a bright side to this week? I know there must be something that I had done in the last week for I do not know where else my time had gone. So I rattle my brain for a few seconds before the memories of the previous week trickle back into remembrance.

-Page Break-

We had walked into town, well shuffled would be the more appropriate word as with our beaten up gear and loss of party members we were worn to the bone. We had shuffled towards the town and once we stepped inside with a little ping 'Welcome to Horunka' we merged into a crowd who with one look at our troupe had made a large space for us to walk through. Curious and pitiful glances encircles us as we had made our way to the closest Inn and without taking at interest at its name we trudged inside.

The inside was quaint and cozy, like a medieval tavern with many people seated around tables drinking, laughing and chatting. As we had walked in the Inn quieted with the closest being the quickest. It was as if we had let out a disturbed wave that caused everyone to quiet and peer at us with pity welling in their eyes.

Kane had walked over to the bold and burly Barman and asked him for rooms while we stood at the entrance averting the many eyes as they looked at us. The barman had replied that there were none crushing what little hope we had left of getting rest.

Seeing us visibly look even more downtrodden a man hidden under a brown and green cloak sitting in a dim corner of the room stood up and headed over to the counter. He had then withdrawn his room rent for the week and with a nod at Kane walked past us and out the door. Chuck, he's a real good guy, but enough about him for the moment I think as I mentally flick the image of him away.

Several others at seeing this quickly stood up and did the same leaving a total of 6 rooms free for us which Kane paid for, for a week each.

With that we had all gone upstairs in a bundle and parted ways at our doors heading off to sleep.

-page break-

The alarm had gone off mercilessly at 8:00 am uncaring about my lack of sleep. Ripping the bedsheets off I rushed towards the alarm and smashed my finger on the X dismissing the alarm.

Feeling unsatisfied with myself for not being able to throw the alarm across the room I groggily equipped my torn starting shirt and trousers, leaving my weapons and armour unequipped for I look beggar enough without them on too.

I opened my bedroom door wafting the quiet noise of early risers down in the inn. I walked slowly down the stairs to join them in breakfast. I picked a table on one side of the room trying to not attract any attention but my ragged clothing had caught the eyes of many who coulden't help but turn and look curiously at me before averting their gaze in view of mine.

Sitting down I took out some 1 col bread and 2 col water and munched on it in silence,my eyes kept peeled to the stairs leading to the rooms and had for my fellow party members to join me.

In the end only Kane, Ross and Scarlet came. Kane looked well rested and wore his mask well; only a slight sliver of sadness could be seen across his face and although he he had smiled at me when he came to sit down no warmth had emanated from that smile. Ross and Scarlet looked rested too but Ross was guiding Scarlet as if she were a lost child, even fed her breakfast. He too had put on a brave face for his sister but the emotional cracks were visible to us all.

We had sat there in silence eating out bread and drinking our water, no one willing to break the ice but rather let it hang thickly in the air.

While I ate I had felt my lack of sleep kicking back in and without a word trudged back up to my room and had collapsed on the bed falling quickly into sleep.

A few hours later I had woken up still feeling a bit groggy but with enough energy to last the rest of the day. It was a little while past midday and I had settled my grumbling stomach with another tasteless bread and water meal.

After finishing my meal I sat on the table that the rooms usually have and was quite surprised by the chair tucked underneath it. I had curiously prodded it with my foot and confirmed that it was real and not a figment of my imagination.

Transferring myself to the chair I moved it closer to the wall and leaned back on it dangling the chair's front legs in the air. I had contemplated what to do, whether to go out into town or not. I had decided after a while that I would stay on the room for the day because I just didn't feel like leaving the room.

The rest of that day had been boring and dull, except for the fact that I had found out that the room also had a window which I looked through and had seen people milling around below. It seemed as though Kane had spent quite a large sum getting the extra little comforts which I truly appreciated.

The watching through the window had taken up the rest of my say and as evening had fallen I returned to back to the bed to sleep.

-page break-

Once again the alarm rung at 8:00am sharp causing me to once more fling myself out of bed before it drove me mad.

I had gone through my usual equip stuff routine and had then walked downstairs to the same table as yesterday and assumed my watching position.

Kane, Ross and Scarlet all joined me soon after. Kane had perfected his mask and not even a sliver of negativity crossed his face, pure neutralness is what he was. Ross had repaired some of the cracks but some emotional instability was still present. Scarlet had changed the most though as she was no longer holding Ross's hand and even though looked on the verge of tears still functioned properly.

Once again no one had been willing to break the ice and we sat there eating our breakfast in solemn silence.

As we had sat there in silence some had walked up to us and shattered our solemn silence with a "Hello there, you look like a mess"

I had looked up from my meal only to drop it on the table at the sight of the stranger who had addressed us; it was young woman with golden hair braided into a single pigtail and a crown on her head accompanied with ocean blue eyes and a bright white smile. She wore a studded leather set of armour, excluding helmet and had a sword and buckler holstered on her hips.

I was surprised by the person itself but when she had told us to "come on and get some new stuff, you can't go walking round town like that" I had just sat there dumbfounded just like the rest of my group till she had clapped her hands with a "lets go, ain't got all day".

Totally and utterly confused I had gotten up and followed her as she walked outside the inn.

Leaving the inn had exposed me to bright morning light and had caused my eyes to squint in displeasure. The woman had stopped for a moment as we all came outside and slowly adjusted to the light and once we were all outside turned on her heel and continued walking At a brisk pace.

As we had to half jog to keep up with her she had told us a bit about herself. Her name was Clara and she was level 4 with a balanced Dexterity and Agility build. She has been in Horunka since the start and has been trying to complete the Anneal blade quest, but her weapon is pretty beat up and she need to repair it. She was taking us along so that we could get our stuff back into shape and also because "he would appreciate the business". Who he was we did not know at the time.

As we made our way through the town we passed through all the buildings, 10 in total so a very small village. As we past each building she told us what it was and I learnt that Horunka consisted of a smithy, 1 inns and a tool store along with 7 NPC houses, which according to her one could rent out a room of theirs.

We had tagged along for around 10 minutes listening to her when we arrived at a small park where a tall negro man with a blooming afro sat comatose on a seat next to a rusty forge.

As Clara had directed us towards him I had noticed that the inn we had stayed at was a little behind the half sleeping man.

Clara had walked up to the man and calling him Mr. Bones patted him softly on the cheek which raised him from his half slumber. He had woken up with a lazy "huh?" towards Clara but upon her pointing at us turned his head towards us looking at us sleepily.

It had taken him a couple of seconds but as soon as it had registered in his mind he had shot out of his chair and with a flourishing bow welcomed us to his shop in his deep, polite tone.

He had asked us what we needed help with and in response we spawned our armour and weapons. The look of shock on his face had been a sight to behold as his jaw had dropped to the floor and he had said "what have they done to you" while walking towards us.

Kane had answered with "Wolves" but to our shock Kane was ignored as Mr. Bones had picked up my surviving boar tusk sword, its edges blunted and pieces of it chipped and missing. It had looked more like a double edged saw.

Mr. Bones had cradled my sword telling it that it'll be fine and commanded us sharply to carefully place our equipment but his forge. He looked as if ready to kill us and I had seen him hold his hand back with his other hand. So we had obeyed him as his sudden change in personality had frightened us. We had placed our equipment at the forge while Clara looked towards us giggling at the trying to keep calm Mr. Bones and the mildly terrified us.

Once we had place all our equipment down he had told us that "it'll cost a pretty penny" fi we wanted our stuff repaired with as calm a voice as he could muster. We had stood there for a few moment trying to get a grasp how much a pretty penny might be until Clara walked up to him and had whispered something into his ear.

His threatening composure morphed back into an upright formal one and as Clara finished her whispering and walked a little off he had turned to us. He had told us in his once again polite tone that "due to...situational causes" he would repair our gear for free and sell us stuff at a reduce price.

We had stood there expecting the i'm kidding but that never came so we were pretty surprised that he had given us this. I was not sure, i'm am still not sure as of yet what the situational cause was as when he had said that, his eyes had flickered over to Clara for a second.

He had not finished though and gave us a few terms and conditions which were reasonable and mostly expected. The first was that we must use him as our personal blacksmith as long as it is convenient. Fair enough, it seemed like he really cares about his weapons. The second was that we must not unless under dire circumstances let our weapons become like they were when we put them by his forge.

He had taken our word that we would comply to his terms and conditions and he set off to repair our gear. His hammer fell time and time again clanging against our beaten weapons and after a few strokes, more for some and less for others, the weapons being worked on reformed to its original shape.

Kane's weapons were too far gone as well as Ross's to be repaired but thankfully my boar tusk sword could be repaired and Scarlets shield could too become repaired.

While Mr. Bones worked on our weapons we looked around his store checking out his small array of basic weapons and a few sets of armour. Scarlet with some pitched in by Ross had bought herself a full set of chain-mail armour at the reduced price of 1200col.

He had called out the price without a moments hesitation which had gotten me wondering how he knew the price so well, or whether he had actually just made it up. Feeling curious about this I asked him but Clara answered in his stead so he could concentrate. She had told me that he's was basing his prices on the npc's prices at a player friendly price.

Quite happy with the reply I had continued to watch him bashing tenderly through the armour giving me my leather stuff back along with a free pair of leather boots. Ross and Kane got their armour back while they bought a Steel 2handed for 50col and a simple rapier for 200col.

The repairing had gone on for a short while, most of it had been due to Clara giving her slim sword to him and with the loving carefulness of a parent rested the sword on his anvil and repaired it. He had also reinforced it with a couple of materials that Clara had given him as well. She explained that reinforcement could be tried a certain number of times for each weapon and can the weapons can be reinforced in 5 different things: Sharpness, Durability, Heaviness, Quickness and Accuracy. According to Clara by adding reinforcement you may change the other stats of the weapon.

After watching many wolf teeth merge with her sword in 3 white glows Mr. Bones hands it over to her with a smile on his face as the chance of the reinforcement is quite low and for it to have work 3 times out of 7.

After Clara had collected her weapon he had shouted to her to have a celebration drink and was slightly pulled out by her saying that she needed to quest. Only slightly put out he had concluded he was going to follow and he took a large shield and a thick sword from his inventory as well as equipping a set of chain-mail. With no choice but to accept it Clara had told us to come back to Mr. Bones's shop tomorrow in the morning and then had walked off with him in tow.

With nothing else to do for the day I walked around town with Ross and Scarlet while Kane went back to the inn. We had fit in quite a bit more and no longer had stares coming our way which was nice. We walked along to the npc shops to try and sell our wolf pelts and teeth while browsing the tool store for food and other goods.

In the end our pelts had sold for 12col a piece which was not too bad but I had kept my wolf teeth because they could be used to reinforce I had learnt. The tool store had a lots of 1 col bread and 2 col water on sale and nothing else much so disappointed we had left that shop.

After stalling round the smithy checking out the leftover weapons and armour which were better than ours but no good we headed off back to the inn. I had luckily remembered that Clara had been talking about some sort of quest, the one for the Anneal Blade.

With that on our minds we had started explored the npc houses but was quickly directed to the quest as some passing player saw us peeking into one of the houses.

We had walked into the designated house and we had been greeted by a female npc who was stirring a bubbling pot and at our entrance stopped and offered us a cup of water upon our entrance while she apologised for not having food. I had drank another bottle of water just before we got into the house so not feeling like wasting the npc's water supply I politely refused. Scarlet and Ross accepted the water and gulped it down thirstily.

As the water was being drank Ross and Scarlet had stopped halfway as the quiet whimpering of a child could be heard from a closed door to our left. Raising our eyebrows at one another we took that as a sign of the quest starting and I had gone up to the npc and had asked her "why is there a crying child in the other room?"

She had looked at me with confusion telling me that she didn't know what I was talking about. I had stood there dumbstruck for a few seconds as I realised that. I had been denied quest access, I did not know why.

This had been quickly found out as Ross had asked the same question and the npc told him that her daughter was sick and needed medicine. A ping then sounded and both Ross and Scarlet got the quest, but I had not...because I had refused her offer of water...

With tears of laughter and mild pity in their eyes Ross and Scarlet walked out dragging me along as. I was still confounded how I had been denied access to a quest, and according to Clara gives the most powerful weapons at the moment, all because I refused to drink some water...

With that weighing heavily on my mind but lightened slightly by Scarlet promising her Anneal blade to me as she would have no use for it we had walked back to the inn our mood growing more moody the closer we got, until we went through the door and solemnly parted into our rooms.

I had eaten some lunch then had played around with my fully repaired sword a bit before I went back to watching the streets below while the thoughts on how the others were taking it right now.

After the sun finally dipped into the earth and a crescent moon rose into the sky I had headed off to bed.

-page break-

The next morning had been pretty much the same with me having to attack the alarm clock and getting nothing but sweet silence in return. Getting my stuff ready I had made my way straight outside past the growing morning activity in the inn. I had stood on the grass for about half a minute before sitting on the grass and munching on my breakfast while waiting.

I had munched alone for quite a while till a there whooshing sound beside me followed by a man cloaked in a brown and green cloak sitting on the ground beside me. He too spawned his bread and water and with an unsatisfactory sigh had tasked himself to eat it.

I had been shocked but his cloak had been recognisable so I knew it was the nice guy from a few days ago. So while we were eating I had said "hi" and after introducing myself he did the same. He removed his cloak revealing short black hair spiked up at the front with a light stubble and shook my hand naming himself as Chuckles, Chuck for short.

Chuck's was a pretty swell guy in my opinion, a total geek like me but somehow still finding time to work out as he had shown me his well muscular arms in pride. He is the guy who would try to be the hero in my opinion and the fact that he carries a shield on his back just in case gave a little bit of evidence of that thought. While I had waited for the others we talked about the weapons we have and which to maybe go into later on in the game. Being a beta tester he knew a lot more types of weapons that are available a little later on the game but he knows there are a lot of other weapon types he does not know about. He carried a slim sword and a shield on his back just in case which was a really good idea in my opinion and I had felt a bit like a noob beside him as my sword was quite a bit underpowered.

After a short while, Ross and Scarlet had come out of the inn and joined us on the grass introducing themselves to Chuck. Kane came soon after, his face as neutral as ever.

We had then all sat on the grass for a short while getting everyone to know a bit more about Chuck until he stood up and told us that it was time to go.

We had looked at him a bit confused and he had rolled his eyes and explained that he's substituting for Clara today. At the mention of Clara we had pretty much gotten on our feet and followed him.

We had followed him out of town onto a field with boars spawning at a distance. He had stopped us a bit away from the boar and asked us to take on a boar, he had explained that he wanted to see us in action.

Complying as I had believed that I was getting a bit rusty at handling my sword I, along with the others charged towards the boar.

Ross had slammed his blade into the boar's face causing its yellow eye to turn red and it had charged him but was stopped by Scarlet. Kane and I had taken opposite flanks and along with Ross made short work of the boar.

Once the boar had blown into its little polygons we had turned back feeling like we did a good job but had seen Chuck look at us in awe mixed with aghast. He had murmured to the wind "no wonder she thought they might need a little training, but I don't think she thought it was this bad".

Confused on how what we just did was bad we had asked him. In response he had told us to watch and learn. He had gone over to another boar and charge at it like Ross did but unlike Ross his sword glowed a light green and when it penetrated the boars head the boar exploded into polygons.

He had turned back to see us stood there in utter confusion as how he made his sword glow. He had laughed and told us that he was impressed that we actually survived going through the forest. He had chuckled for a littler while longer in our confusion before finally righting himself and telling us about Skills.

He had instructed us to look through our menu and find our skill slots. I had found my 2 skill slots that I had somehow missed when I had looked through my menu.

I pride myself for knowing a lot about Sword Art Online in relations to game mechanics but when it comes to gameplay I have no idea about it.

He went through a brief explanation telling us that there were a lot of skills, most still unknown as I confirmed by seeing lots of skills on my skills tab as lines of question marks. Sword skills are the main fighting skills but there are some other skills that are yet to be found for sure Chuck had us believe. He had asked us to choose our skills and had told us about the filter which had allowed us to get rid of the skills we could not learn at the moment or we did not know of.

I had looked through my available skills to see that I had quite a lot of skills to look at. Deciding to look at them a later date I had closed my menu without filling my skills slots. the others however had filled their skills slots and that had been shown quite Quickly as with an array of lights they smashed their way through a group of boars within half a minute.

After about 2 hours of trying out the new skills Kane had headed back to town and Ross, Scarlet and I had gone do the Anneal blade quest.

Because of our new Sword skills we had thought that we could beat them easily but we didn't really get a go at them. It was because almost all the other people who stayed at. Horunka were around trying to complete the quest, therefore we had spent about and hour watching the little nepents flailing away at the beta testers who expertly dealt with the problem and finished off their prey with ease. With mild awe we had watched many beta testers fight while we had waited for a nepent to spawn. It was a large area but with close to 100 beta tester all soloing there was no corner untouched.

After a while we had given up planning to do it tomorrow, maybe getting the others to join in.

At the mention of the others we had all gone into deep thought and with that we had all walked back into town around midday, eaten our lunch in the inn and I had gone back up to my room.

I had once again gone back to my brooding position by the window and thought about what I had learnt. I had opened my skills and checked out heat I had: I could do Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Leather-working, Acrobatics, Sprint, Hiding, Spotting, Fishing, Cooking, Woodcutting and a bunch of Weapon Skills.

I had opened the Woodcutting for more details as that looked mildly interesting and I when I had opened it a small 'requirement: topple 50 trees complete' came up then disappeared revealing the skill. I was quite impressed with myself as I had indirectly, thanks to the wolves somehow toppled 50 trees and accidentally unlocking a new skill. Seeing as that it had a requirement I had thought that the skill was decently unique if only at the moment for me.

I had checked the information screen and was interesting:

Woodcutting 0/1000

Allows user to cut trees down with increasing ease as skill increases. Allows user to cut fallen trees into planks according to size cut and skill. Requires weapon to cut wood. Caution, chosen weapon my affect how much needed to cut tree.

It had sounded pretty interesting so I had put it in my first skill slot and a screen had popped up:

Woodcutting skill 1/1000

Can cut trees down with various hits of chosen weapon. can cut fallen trees into log or plank. Caution, weapon chosen may affect how much needed to cut tree.

Once I had closed the window I had commented to the wind that "I really am becoming a deforester. Hmm...Drake the Deforester, not a bad nickname if I say so myself".

With that said my stomach had grumbled and deciding on a change of scenery for dinner I had gone down to the inn and got myself a table and munched on some bread and sipped on some water.

It was a poor decision however as the people at the inn were all talking about their questing, their levels and their new equipment. According to them level 4 was the low tier and level 5 the higher tier the more veteran players. That had put me in a really bad mood as I was not even in the lower tier. That had really sucked listening to them and as soon as I finished my meal I had stomped up to my room and banged open the door.

-page break-

Now that I recalled everything I notice that the past couple of days were quite useful teaching us a few things and getting us ready to get back on track.

In a decently good mood, now that I've convinced myself that I didn't waste the past couple of days, I relax my eyes and let sleep finally take me over only to wake up what felt like seconds later to that damn alarm beeping in front of me...

**Ok so phew chapter done, I will probably update it again after re re re revising the tenses which are a pain, but apart from that finally getting back on track again, next chapter out on sunday.**

**Hope you enjoyed**

**-ChazRay**


	9. Chapter 8: The Quest for the Blade!

**Kudos(do they still use that term?) to Ordo-Silver for being my first positive review (Agent 94 was the first but he was a more constructive review so thanks to him too). But anyways hope you like it.**

Ding Ding Ding!

my eyes snap open as I am ripped away from my dreamless slumber.

Ding Ding Ding!

I throw my covers off baring my skin to the cold air in the room causing me to shiver violently.

Ding Ding Di-

I smash my finger onto the dismiss button popping the alarm into non-existance. That alarm is literally the most annoying thing in this place, well at least it does its job well.

Mumbling curses to myself as I re equip my armour to see that although I have boots, arm bracers and leg guards I don't exactly have a shirt or trousers. The shirt is ripped and torn hanging only by threads whereas the trousers have become more like shorts.

Putting clothes on the top of my to do list I sit at my personal table in my room and munch on my breakfast mentally going through my to do list:

1. Get clothes

2. Do the quest that I didn't get

3. ...

I really didn't know what else I needed to do for the rest of the day so sort of happy with the days plans I set about to complete them.

I walked down through the slowly filling inn with morning customers and out to the awakening town, some players had awoken earlier and were already leaving for the day's grinding.

I headed straight for Mr. Bones's 'shop' which was only a couple of metres away and saw that he was thankfully there and already doing business.

Kane was standing there bartering with him and asking questions about materials and smithing techniques. Alongside him was a short woman with long curly brown hair. She was putting on a new set of leather armour and finished off with placing her repaired giant gleaming battle-axe on her back. Another was beside them, an average sized guy with slicked back golden hair and a small stubble wore only boots and arm guards along with clothing equally ripped as mine. He wore a rapier on his side.

I stood there dumbfounded: Gwynevith and Charlesming were outside...It's been almost a week since I've seen them outside. It threw me off a bit because I had put knowledge of them traumatised in their rooms aside so that I did not dwell and worry over them all day long but to have them outside was bizarre. Its only been a couple of days since it happened and to have them outside moving on by now was pretty outstanding for they had been affected pretty badly, I didn't expect them for at least another week, if that quick.

No, I mentally berate myself as I spot the almost dead look on Charlesming's face, they haven't really moved on yet they are just reaching the starting of doing so...

After reconstructing my face to make it the natural cheery me I trundle up to them all confidently.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late"

"No worries, just our getting armour and weapons repaired" Kane replies on the ball

"Talking about armour...Mr. Bones, can I get a leather chest piece and trousers?

Mr. Bones looks up from pounding some armour into shape, takes one look at my torn clothing "take some, on the house for all of you"

nodding a thanks I equip some armour feeling a bit restricted but at least I looked like a proper warrior and not some beggar with a sword.

After I've equipped my armour and everyone has everything back up to full durability, Kane leads us back into the inn and upon entering spots Ross and Scarlet chilling a corner head off over to them.

Scarlet is quick to the act seeing Gwynevith and Charlesming but Ross is slightly behind, his mouth hanging slightly open in surprise but returned to normal position with the help of a sharp jab by Scarlet to his ribs.

The 6 of us sit round the table and everyone starts munching on their food. As we eat Kane fiddles around with his finger in the air, opening his invisible menu. Suddenly the menu appears in the middle of the table and it opens onto a blank screen.

"So what are our plans for today?" Asks Kane round the table

"Well there's this quest I picked up that you can too" Suggests Ross

"Yes, according to the people here the reward is the best weapon of the first few floors." adds in Scarlet

Kane asks for where to get the quest and jots it down on his menu before taking Gwynevith and Charlesming along, Ross and Scarlet go with them while I say that I'll catch another few minutes kip, as I did not want to face the npc who denied me a quest.

I relaxed for a few minutes angling my seat against the wall and resting my eyes until Ross poked me back into consciousness saying "Lets go"

-page break-

Kane, Gwynevith and I walk side by side along the plains, the boars ignoring us as we ignore them. We had split ourselves into 2 parties of 3 so as to make it easier to find the required quest item but also so that we could split our power evenly.

We walked along quietly only the wind and the rustling of the grass as we move through it keeping our world from being completely silent.

I can feel my heart beat faster and more furious on my chest as my throat tightens and catches my breath. The words are there stuck in my throat but they just don't want to come out...I close my eyes and let out a long deep breath calming my heart and my nerves.

"I wan't to say it's like the good old times..."

"But it's only been just over a week" chips in Kane

"Wow so short a time it has been? Still can't believe we first met only around a week ago."

"Well it was quite a meeting for sure"

"I swear you had laughed at me"

"Well yes, it's not every day you get to see a show quite like that, especially when you roared to the heavens"

"One does seem to do that after beating a boar to death with their fists"

"You're such a noob"

"I'll have you know I have lots of gaming experience, just didn't expect 0 durability stuff to disappear into midair. I've also gone through SAO systems through and through"

"So why didn't you know about sword skills?"

"umm...well I kind of skipped that bit, I prefer to look at the coding and the graphics"

"You're such a noob" Kane repeats as he face-palms

"And I'm proud to be one, means I also fit in with you"

"Ah, almost forgot we are on the same level, figuratively"

"You're just more of a target"

"No wonder you don't get attacked then Drake, you're barely a mouthful for the beasts."interjects the other voice who had kept silent till now

Both Kane and I stopped in our tracks and turned round to look at Gwynevith whose giggling had now became audible. Kane lets out a barking laugh and I give Gwynevith a playful glare before we both entrap her from either side in a hug.

"Welcome back" we say together to her

"Been waiting long then?" She says as she tries to squirm her way out of our hug which we do not allow "Let me go!" She says trying to keep her gigantic grin off her face as we say "never!" in unison returning her grin equally as large.

We play escape the hug for about a minute until she finally lifts us in the air 1 at a time and chucks us away. We fall to the ground losing a couple of hit points but that regenerates as we continue our walk in a better mood. She asks us questions about what happened in the last couple of days and we started to fill her in.

-page break-

"I can't believe you waited for me all this time" Gwynevith grimaces happily at us once we finished recapping

"Well we do need our resident eye candy"

"Drake!"

"Still" comments Kane "everyone'll definitely miss you in your old clothes"

"Thats the most you're ever gonna see of them big guy"

Kane's jaw drops in shock as the images flood into his mind and I burst into laughter at the flushing red Kane.

"I don't know what you're laughing about mister, same goes for you too"

This time it's Kane's turn to laugh as my jaw drops in shock...

Kane stops laughing after a few seconds as the trees of the forest loom a few metres away and turns to Gwynevith.

"Ok so you know earlier how I mentioned Sword Skills, well you need to learn some before we go into the forest."

He then opens his menu in full view of us and shows Gwynevith the skills and how to put them in. She does so and after she looks at her invisible menu for a few seconds she positions herself axe overhead and swings down. a purple light emanates from the axe and streaks behind it as it crashes to the ground cracking it slightly.

"Umm...how many points did you put into Strength?" I inquire

"Oh all of them" the looks on our faces must have been quite shocked because she then asked us "What's wrong with that?"

"Oh...ummm...nothing just...full strength is just a bit..."

"Scary" Kane finishes for me

"Exactly, I mean your slow but if you hit us you could kill us."

"Ill keep that in mind" Gwynevith says with a grin sending shivers down our spines, then winks it off.

We set back to walking entering the light forest and as we walk Kane turns to me Out of curiosity.

"So what skills did you pick?"

"Woodcutting"

Kane stops in his tracks "I'm sorry but i'm an older guy so my hearing isn't so great but I swear you just said that you took woodcutting"

"You heard right"

"..."

"..."

"BWAHAHA!" Kane bursts into laughter tears springing from his eyes as he leans on a tree for support. Gwynevith who had been listening in snorts in laughter and tries to cover it up with her hands unsuccessfully. I stand there tapping my foot and rolling my eyes waiting for them to subside which they do, eventually.

"What kind of thinking made you choose that as one of your precious skills?" Kane says once he regains his composure

"Well it had a requirement that I somehow fulfilled so I thought it was pretty unique"

Gwynevith fiddles with her menu "I don't have it, so what are the requirements?"

"Had to topple 50 trees"

"Wow must have been hell of a night" stated Kane. No one needed to ask which night it was. The mood dampened slightly at the memory and to driving the conversation in another direction Kane asks me what i'll do then.

"Well I think i'll cut some trees to skill myself up while you guys handle the Nepents?"

They both nodded at the suggestion and we walked another few minutes passing a couple of groups of people fighting their own nepents. After a short while we find a place void of any other players but quite scarce of nepents too.

I see a nepent spawn and as Kane and Gwynevith go over to fight it I look round to find a suitable tree. The trees were light oakish looking trees, decently tall but not huge.

Deciding on a random close by tree I get out my boar tusk sword feeling a bit stupid that I didn't buy an axe, take position like the lumberjacks in the movies and swing my sword at the tree.

My sword clangs off the tree throwing me back a bit but leaving a thin dull white line where my sword had struck across the tree. I reposition myself and swing again as hard as I could. My sword once again clangs off the tree throwing me back again and the line stayed the same. I reposition myself for my third strike when the reward window pops up causing me to flinch unexpectedly at it.

I close it without bothering to look and go back to swinging.

-page break-

"Oomph"

I plop onto the ground beside my tree my arms aching slightly and out of breath. I spawn some water and watch Gwynevith and Kane with the little nepent they have set their eyes on.

Kane aggros the thing causing it to whip its vines at him. He swings his sword down in a purple glow slicing the left tentacle off but getting swatted away by the right one.

As he flies to the floor Gwynevith charges in from the unprotected left side her axe glowing a deep red as she flings it horizontally slicing through the nepent's midsection and causing it to fall to the ground in 2 pieces before exploding into blue polygons.

Hmm so the nepent's do a lot amount of damage like the wolves as shown by Kane whose health bar is on low yellow with 1 hit but unlike the wolves they have a decent amount of hit points too which means nothing under with Gwynevith though as she almost kills one with 1 swing of her axe.

Quite impressed I stand back up to look at my progress so far; the line is shining a brightish white as well as there being a small indent in the tree where i've been hitting it for the past 20 minutes. Sighing I ready myself for another slice.

-page break-

My sword thuds into the tree a piece of my sword breaking off but the rest of it penetrating deep stopping at the glowing white line embedded deep within the tree.

Wiping the sweat from my brow I pull my sword out of the tree and ready myself for the next swing but an urge of sorts stops me, instinct or a sort of game mechanic to stop unprecedented accidents or help players. For some reason I feel as though the tree will fall next hit so I turn around to Kane and Gwynevith who are letting Kane recover hit points and tell them to make space.

The comply and move further out. Letting out a deep breath I position myself in the well practiced position and swing. My sword slices through the tree the sound of bark tearing fills my ears and the white line burns brightly before disappearing as my sword slices right through it. The tree with an almighty groan slowly topples and crashes to the ground with a bang.

Feeling accomplished I raise my sword into the air with a "yes!" before opening my skills window to check how much i've increased it.

Woodcutting 2/1000...Wow, just wow. Almost 2 hours of work and i've gained 1 point, 1 measly point in cutting down that tree.

However, I look at the fallen tree, I should get points by cutting this up so this might be my saving grace. I position myself beside my fallen tree and with a sigh swing my sword down.

-page break-

Another burning white glow glares in my eyes before the tree divides itself into 3 parts. I had planned it out as I cut and it looked like it worked pretty well as according to what i've done I choose the length and the width of my logs or planks. Logs seemed easier to do so I've planned to do that.

At the moment there are 3 large chunks of wood around my arm span length which seemed like a good size. I haven't changed the thickness but that will come next as I will cut my chunks into hopefully logs.

The system is pretty cool as it gives you a sort of instinctual feeling as to how many times to cut it and where. I have 3 chunks so after lunch i'm planning to play around with the system a little bit.

My mental conversation with myself must have shown as I was walking towards where Kane and Gwynevith sat munching on their food looking at me with raised eyebrows.

"Oh just planning what to do next with my wood"

"You're quite a slow worker there" Observes Kane as he glances at my fallen tree

"Well I am cutting with a sword so it takes a while" I show him my chipped and battered sword to which they both grin in amusement.

Rolling my eyes I plop myself down and spawn some bread and water.

"So how's the killing going?"

"I tell you it's a lot easier than when we used to fight without sword skills" nods Kane sagely

"They die a lot faster" says Gwynevith as she copies Kane's sagely nod

"We also die a lot quicker though and I've had to put 2 of my points into Vitality and 1 into Strength for good measure."

"Thinking of going tank then?"

"Yes, the party lacks a tank"

"What do you mean we have Scarlet" interjects Gwynevith

"I guess the time has come then Kane?"

"Yes"

"Wait a second what time? What has come?" Gwynevith glances at us completely lost

"Kane's thinking of splitting the party"

Kane nods at the look of confirmation from Gwynevith.

"But, but why?"

"Have you forgotten why we came here In the first place?"

"To find a town for the...oh but why don't you just message Sarge?"

"I did and he has asked me to come in person to help the others across"

"So we are like a personal bodyguard then?"

"No, we will teach them how to use the sword skills and then they will make their own way fully prepared for the dangers."

"But you can put that in the message too can't you?"

"He can and probably did but you have another motive don't you Kane?" I interject

"Yes, this place is too small and with the thousands of people that will be levelling back at the Starting City we need to take them to another place."

"And by the way you said that I'm guessing you know where?"

"I've been asking around, according to them there's a town named Tolbana quite a while off to the east of the Starting City. The creatures are Level 3 on the way however so its harder than the forest."

"So you want to go to make sure people make it across?"

"Exactly, and Gwynevith you're coming with to make it easier"

"And I'm staying aren't I?" I comment knowingly and Gwynevith looks at me in confusion.

"Why?"

"Well if we all wen't what would it seem like to the others?"

"It'd look like...we left them behind..."

"Correct, that's why I have to stay here to act as the intermediary between everyone, and If I'm guessing correct, it is also to help Gastalf and Charlesming along am I right?"

"You are, Ross and Scarlet will do more than fine by themselves but the other 2 will not. Charlesming looks to have gone speed damage and you have no skill. Gastalf will probably make himself defensive of sorts meaning that although your party composition is not that great the 3 of you can make it work."

"Seems like you've been thinking about this a lot"

"Both me and Gastalf have been planning it"

Now that surprised both me and Gwynevith as neither of us had seen him nor heard from him for almost a week.

"I've been updating him on what we've been doing and in return he's been thinking about what to do next, He's the one whose been planning how this will all work out and gathering information. He's also keeping a running log with Sarge on the plans and he's helping us out a bit too..."

"Hmm that was surprising...Well shall we get back to work?" I say as I stand up and unsheathe my sword

"Have fun with that" Gwynevith grins as she also takes out her weapon.

I walk over to my leftmost chunk of wood, decide what to do with it and start hacking away.

-page break-

"FINALLY I'M DONE!" I shout out as the burning white glow disappears leaving all 3 of my wood chunks cut.

Cut being the ambiguous word as I had tried a couple of things and they had mixed results. The first chunk of wood was used to see what shapes I could cut my wood into. The answer was: literally any shape, as long I had the time. Although the downside of that was that I'm pretty bad at geometry so my 'shapes' were more like bits of wood had been ripped off of the main bit.

The second chunk of wood was to see if I could do as little work as possible. I had done this by having the chunk sectioned with the lines on the last hit to being cut. Then I sliced my way through the midsection of the chunk leaving 2 halves on top of one another. then finishing off cutting the sections showed me that yes I could cut multiple pieces with 1 stroke, however the cut pieces were angles slightly and each was a bit different then the others. So I could mass produce but then the wood would lose quality.

The last chunk was to actually try produce some proper logs. I was able to make a total of 8 logs but only 2 could be called logs, the other 6 were misshapen one way or another as my hits had not been in exactly the same place or the last hit had been angled differently. The system was pretty strict with how to do it right and at my level of experience, which is basically zero, I'd expected to fail quite a lot.

Looking at the beaten wolf tooth sword that Kane had given me I put it into my inventory along with my 1 durability boar tusk sword. The Wolf tooth sword was too heavy so it was hard to get accurate hits although they wee a tiny bit stronger.

Feeling quite proud that out of a possible 24 logs I had created 2 and learnt a bit about my woodcutting skill I placed my logs onto my inventory, Light Oak Logs, and they filled about 40% of my inventory themselves. Thinking it was a mild blessing that I didn't successfully create more logs I check my skill window.

Woodcutting 4/1000. Hmm so actually that doesn't look half bad I muse to myself before a fruity odour wafts across my nose.

I sniff at the fruity scent and follow it turning round to see it emanating from the fruit on top of a little Nepent. It looks the same like the other nepent's, with 2 whipping vines and a large smiling mouth but something about it seems wrong.

This one had a fruit on it's head that was letting off an odour. It doesn't seems to be affecting me so really the only thing it could be doing is to...

"Guys" my eyes wide with realization "We gotta run! NOW!"

They finish of the nepent and raise their eyebrows but comply and start to make their way back to the village jogging as quickly as they could.

"Attraction Trap" I state simply to answer their questioning eyebrows and the crashing sound of bushes being ripped away and the noise of raging nepents come from behind us:

4 of them appear almost simultaneously converging on the spot we were only a few seconds ago before turning and charging towards us their tongues licking their lips at us. I mutter a curse when I see that one of them has a budding flower on it's head, the one we've been looking for.

"Guys, get flower one while running?" I ask

They spot the flower nepent and slow down slightly allowing the nepent's to inch closer, thankfully the flower nepent is at the front. Kane remains at the front as he is still damaged from the last fight and I go to the back to block the whipping vines allowing Gwynevith to stop and slice the nepent causing it to burst into polygons but then allowing the one behind to strike out at her lashing her across the face. However she stubbornly kept her feet on the ground and sped up to full speed.

The nepent's were thankfully not very fast and although 1 hit from them could probably kill any of us they weren't able to get close enough to deliver that blow. After a good 10 minutes of jogging the nepent's drop out walking back to where they came allowing us to continue without dropping pace back to the village.

We arrive at the village entrance a short while later our hp back to full and out of breath. Kane sends a quick message to the others about the fruit nepent and asking them to meet at the inn within the hour. With that we walk into the safe zone and make our way towards the inn.

**Ok so woo thats done, um dialogue is it too confusing or do you know whose speaking?**

**well anyways hope this gave you a little more insight onto my guys as I am building them up still (Why is Drake so forgetful) but yes, hope you enjoyed!,**

**next chapter will be out wednesday earliest, Thursday latest.**

**-ChazRay**


	10. Chapter 9: On the Other Side

**Another one done! not quite as fast as magic but eh quick enough. Enjoy!**

**ah also quick shoutout to .Otaku thanks for the review :D and i got 500 views to thank you to all you readers internet kisses to you all :D**

The monotone chiming of the alarm spreads through the once silent room filling it noisily.

I open my eyes letting the morning rays blind me as I lay there staring at the thatched ceiling.

I try to lay there enjoying the warm rays hitting my face while denying the pain in my squinted eyes and the drumming of my ears as the alarm drills it way through them filling my peaceful mind with nothing but that noise.

Sigh

I push the sheets away, stand up to face the alarm and stop it.

Standing in my lukewarm room with only my boxers I tidy my sheets and place my pillow on the windowsill letting it bask in the morning sun.

After laying my pillow there I unhook the latch and open it outwards letting a fresh breeze glaze over me chilling my bare body. Along with the breeze came the noise, the noise of bustling players bartering with shopkeepers, chatting with others of simply walking with the flow of the crowd. I recognise that many wear sashes or headbands of the lime green cloth of beginners...

Sigh

I take out my menu and equip my baggy starting clothes complete with a lime green shoulder-band on the right shoulder. I don't bother to equip my sword for I don't have need of it within town and it felt...weird, strange, foreign on my hip. Guess I wasn't one of the people who could adapt to accept the carrying of weapons.

After equipping my clothes blocking some cool wind away from my body I take one last look at the town staring past the roof's to stare at the rising sun accomplishing a burning sensation in my eyes.

Sigh

I close the window, lock the hatch and stifling a yawn head over to the door.

Well that was what was supposed to happen but somehow my body redirects me to my bed. Going with my body's wish I lay down on my bed feeling sleep slowly taking over my consciousness but never finishing as a ping dragged me back.

I re-open my eyes to see a message waiting to be read. I open it and the words spill out in front of me: 'Hey bro! You ready for it? I'm coming to pick you up in 5, don't wanna be late or He'll get mad. Cya in a bit.'

Sigh

I drag my reluctant body out of bed ignoring its silent screams for rest. I manage to turn my body away from the bed and with much effort take steps away from it towards the door. As if given up my body sighs in acceptance as I open the door and leave the room.

Trudging down the stairs I make my way into the room: the room looks to be a dining room as a table and a set of chairs is placed in the middle, however there is a fireplace to one side and a kitchen to the other showing it to be all the rooms, on the far end of the room is the front door as well.

The room was not bare however as sitting on a chair flicking through a small book, stopping for some time at parts suggesting that he was finding his favourite parts of the story, was a young man. Gareth

He did not look much older than 20 but the slight crinkle next to his eyes along with deepening laugh lines suggested otherwise. He had blond hair ruffled and unkempt along with a thin beard. his brown eyes squinted at the book as his large slightly bent nose delved into it.

He was immersed in his book and did not offer me a hello but that was fine for my attention had gone somewhere else almost immediately of entering the room.

From the kitchen wafted the savoury scent of frying eggs and baking beans along with the sound of sizzling bacon. My mouth watered at the almost edible smell but I paid no heed to the thin line of drool escaping my mouth as I was fixated on something else.

The cooker of this delicious smell hummed a light tune sounding like the tweeting of a bird. The cooker was a woman, her hair braided into an intricate ponytail that snaked down her back. She turns revealing her chocolate brown eyes along with plump pink lips. She almost skips to the breakfast table holding 3 plates of heavenly smelling food before setting them on mats delicately. She then bounds back into the kitchen, meq watching her intently as her baggy blue dress swirls around her feet. My eyes follow her as she travels back from the kitchen holding cutlery and drinks and sets them down on the table. As Gareth eagerly sets down his book and picks up his cutlery she produces a napkin and tucks it into his collar. He waits patiently a smile on his face and once she finishes leans towards her and gives her a peck on the cheek. With a giggle she sits down and readies herself to eat.

Gareth points at me from across the table and I suddenly remember to wipe my drool and not stand like a moron at the bottom of the stairs. He points at me then towards the chair, his mouth occupied with a bit of egg.

Sigh

"I'm sorry but I don't have time for breakfast today"

With a curt nod he expresses his apology for not being able to eat such a savoury meal and I make my way over to the front door my stomach grumbling audibly as the scent teases my senses.

"Will you be back for lunch or dinner?" Comes a melodic voice from behind me

"Maybe someday"

Reluctantly I open the door letting the sounds of town trickle in and with a goodbye step outside shutting the door behind me.

Sigh

No sooner had I closed the door an arm swept round my neck pulling my head down allowing a knuckle to rub quickly across it.

"I said 5 minutes, its been 6 now you're going to have to get punished" came a chuckling voice from beside me as he continues to give me a noogie.

He stops after a few seconds bored from my lack of reaction towards the noogie. I stand back straight and look slightly down at the young mexican guy, "Hey Joe. He wears the same starting clothes as me along with his lack of weapon also but a black headband resides on his head.

"Juey! jeesh how many time have I gotta tell you its Ju-ey not Joe"

"Jo-e"

"Insufferable, should have just called myself Juan"

"Guan?"

"Juan like with an H"

"Huan"

"Oh forget it"

"Ok Joe"

Sigh

We start to walk down the street Juey looking at me his eyebrows raised questioningly

"Oh c'mon you're not sulking about not having time for breakfast?"

Sigh

"Or" his eyebrows waggle and he grins mischievously "Is it that you did not have time to spend with the lovely lady back inside, Annabel-"

"Annabeth" I state through my clenched jaw

"Right on target" he grins happily at me which I instantly stop with my best death glare. "Woah don't get all murder like on me will you"

I give him the stare for a few more seconds before returning back to my usual composure.

Sigh

We walk on in silence for a few more seconds before with an obvious but failed effort in keeping it in Juan talks again.

"But dude you haven't got a chance with her-"

"I know-"

"cause she is-"

"I KNOW!"

"All right all right lay off just stating the facts. But seriously theres plenty...well a bit less then plenty but still a decent amount of women for your to catch your eyes on."

I just look at him

"Well suit yourself" he shrugs

With that we walk in silence for another few minutes before turning off at an inn and step inside.

-page break-

The inn is packed with players all standing uncomfortably close to eachother trying to squeeze everyone in to the room. We are forced to suck in our stomachs and squeeze through the miniature gaps left for people to try and move around.

As we go at a snails pace I get a good look at the people I go past recognising no one but the black cloth wrapped around varying parts of their body give a clear sign of who they are.

To my count there's around 100 people here. It was quite easy to count them as no one really moved since the masses of bodies encolosed around kept them in place.

After a long while of trying to fit through the tiny gaps we make it to a side wall of the inn and some people seeing us, inch apart to make some space for us on to lean. We squish in with a thanks and lean there watching the others mingling.

Many of them ate their bread silently while others dozed on a strangers shoulders. Some talked with the people around them while others just listened in to conversations.

Juey spawns some bread and noisily tears at it but stops after a few seconds seeing that I did not spawn any.

"You know, love cannot fill the stomach" he said in a wise voice while standing up as straight as he could

Ignoring him I peek around to try find somewhere decent to sit but no such place is offered to my eyes. If nowhere to sit I won't eat.

Sigh

Juey continues to ravish his food for anotner minute or so finishing it off just in time as the heavy sound of boot on stair resounded across the room.

The inn quietened and everyone turned as best they could towards the stairs as the sound of boot on stair boomed throughout the room.

"Good morning" says Sarge as he reached a few stairs before the bottom so as to be able to see everyone while they could still see him.

A general round of good mornings come from everyone in disjointed timings which caused most of the words to clash and lose all meaning but sound.

Sarge clears his throat instantly bringing everyone to silence as they wait on him expectantly.

"You have been gathered here because you have been chosen to be the second expedition"

A round of cheers from most people, I notice that some have a worried look on their faces.

"The first expedition was successful in its task, therefore you guys shall follow on. The details will be explained by...that fellow over there" his finger pointed in my direction, no at me.

Every eye in the room turns towards me sizing me up and some when seeing my cloth snort in disappreciation.

Sigh

I push off the wall and the ones infront make a little space for me.

"I have kept in contact with the first expedition leaders. As of half a week ago, I lost contact with 11 out of 13 of those...permanently"

The room filled with gasps of shock and horror from my words as they realise, some quicker than others that 11 parties have died. Ignoring the reactions I continue.

"The 2 who I still am in contact with have made it to the village of Horunka, which lies beyond the forest"

The room quietened at the mention of Horunka as it was another place where they could finally grind properly.

"It's been half a week you said, so why didn't we go back then?" Questioned a voice from within the crowd.

"Because I have recieved information about a danger within the forest that wiped out all but 7 of our first expedition

No more questions followed

"Your job is to traverse the woods and go to the village of Horunka to continue levelling up"

The crowd of people went into riot at the task as they had understandably been told that 90% of the first expedition was wiped out by the forest and they were up next. People started pushing past others to make for the door and getting the signal most turned and went to leave.

But they never made it out the door as a thundering stomp from Sarge brought their attention back to him.

"Be not afraid of death for we live with it daily nowadays, We are the face of the army so if we falter then all will crumble. Do you wish the fate of depression and suicide for your fellow Americans?"

"But you gotta be crazy if you want us to willingly walk to our deaths" came a shout from within the crowd

"And crazy I may be then. However, I would not let you go unarmed. No I shall arm you with something that will guarantee your lives."

The angry mutters became more curious and questioning stares towards Sarge almost asking him to continue.

"Two of the first expedition will arrive shortly" Sarge stated simply

The sentence was a simple one but it held a deeper meaning as if two of the expedition were to come here they would have had to come back through the forest, which at this moment seems impossible to everyone, everyone but me and a select few who were informed on the secret behind how they could possibly make it back safe, I thought with an internal smile.

"They have learnt things from the Beta testers situated in Horunka and now return to pass on this knowledge to all of you. Once you have safely arrived at Horunka the other members of the expedition and the Beta testers will further guide you."

Sheepishly everyone who was leaving turns back around and returns back to their spots looking embarrassed and guilty.

"So when are they coming?" Asks someone who I cannot see.

A loud knock of three times on the front door answers his question.

After the knocks end the door swings open revealing 2 strangers entering behind it.

In front was a short woman with curled brown hair rolling down her shoulders and some in front of her face hiding one ocean blue eyes behind. I doubt most people would know her eye colour as I not that most did not reach the eyes as her leather armour stretched to bursting at the chest grabbed everyones attention, as well as the 2ft gleaming silver handle rising behind her back.

Behind her strolled in a man with slicked back hair along with a stubble and thick eyebrows resting comfortably atop his brown eyes. His large muscles filled up his armour and even made it seem a little tight for him. His jaw chiseled and his face held a few lines of age, particularly laugh lines.

"Hello there" the man said with a deep rumbling voice "I am Kane and my companion here is Gwynevith. We have gone through a difficult journey there and an easy one back" this brought curiosity across everyones faces. "How? Well that is what we are here to show you. Follow us to the fields if you will."

With that he turned around and strolled outside allowing Gwynevith to go first. Everyone filed in behind him and we made our way through town in single file earning more than a few curious stares from onlookers.

I was right at the back of the line along with Sarge who acknowledged me before getting down to dealing with a new message.

We found ourselves in the field a few minutes later seeing the light green beginners fighting their boars with the outdated method that everyone in this town uses. Well that is about to change thanks to Kane and Gwynevith.

Continuing walking past the surprised stares from the beginners we make our way to the forests edge and walk inside for a few minutes before Kane finally stops us and brings us closer so we can hear him.

"Watch me closely" Kane states to us all renewing our curiosity and walks a bit further on while we watch. A wolf pair howls and spawns close by to him and he aggros them.

They charge towards him baying with tongues lolling out. He removes his steel 2-handed and raises it above his head. A collective gasp rises from the crowds as the sword glows purple and within a blink of an eye sails down clashing with one wolf, continuing through it till it hits the floor. The wolf bursts into polygons and the second one even more angry pounces towards Kane who could easily have dodged it, if he was able to move that is.

Kane stood there for a split second immobilised but that was enough for the wolf to reach him and bite down hard on his arm. The wolf doesn't barrel him over however but rather Kane throws the wolf in the air and places his sword horizontally, this time with a red glow. The wolf drops to the ground and quickly stands up only to meet the scarlet sword as it slices through the wolf's flank bursting it into polygons.

Sheathing his weapon he turns to his flabbergasted crowd, all stood there in a daze not sure whether this was a figment of the imagination.

"Now you may all be thinking this is a higher level ability that you unlock later on. Well you're wrong, It's a level one ability, or more accurately skill that every one of you can learn, if you want to"

Everyone had seemed to have lost the ability to speak as they just nodded eagerly towards Kane whose face kept straight but the slight upwards twitch of his lips suggested he was hiding his smile with all his might.

"Open your menu, go onto Character and click the Skills tab. You should see that you have 2 skill slots available, all skills in white are ones you can choose. there are requirements to unlock others and in later levels you will gain more skills slots. Please note that once the skill has been put in you cannot remove it."

A flurry of hands swiping down and ecstatically staring at their available skills as Kane gives an overview of the types of skills being Sword skills, Crafting skills and Support skills.

I open my own menu and check out my skills. I have a bunch of sword skills and a couple of crafting ones that really don't interest me at all. However the support skills are what catch my eye: After looking through the ones available which were limited to Hide, Search, Sprint, Acrobatics, Straining and Picking.

I debate to myself for a few moments as I should really take a sword skill however I'm not really comfortable with one and would in all honesty rather have another support skill. Deciding against the proposed sane decision I put Sprint and Search into my slots.

Two windows ping in front of me:

Sprint 1/1000

can run 1% faster

Search 1/1000

cursor range of monsters and players viewable 1 metre further

Satisfied with my decision, well satisfied with making a decision at least, I close my menu and focus back on Kane.

"Now I suppose you were told there was a danger within the woods. The danger was a trap that set off anywhere in the woods causing 8 wolves to spawn nearby and follow you throughout the entire forest, aggroing nearby wolf mobs to join them as well."

The looks of shock and horror plastered across everyones faces and I think that some realised what Kane just said fully. 8 wolves did not seem like a lot to a party of 6 with sword skills. However the first expedition did not have sword skills and they were effectively wiped out. The story behind how they obtained the information was quite an interesting one too I muse to myself.

"Kane purposefully ignoring the round of pitiful stares coming his way positions himself in front of Gwynevith protecting her from the stares.

"Here is a map for where Horunka is, should take 4 to 5 hours but if jogged will only take 3" he opens a trade window with Sarge who then trades it with his subordinates who trade them with the leaders of each party which gives it to the whole party. "Good luck, my companions will be waiting on the other side"

With the map given to everyone Sarge told everyone present "Go to Horunka and may you reach there fine"

Getting into their parties then heading off the crowd slowly trickles down to few in minutes. Juey pats me on the back before being called over by Sarge and pointed towards a group.

I stand there watching everyone looking thrilled disappear into the forest and soon I'm left alone with Kane, Gwynevith, Sarge and around a dozen personnel.

Sigh

"Why didn't you two go?" asks Sarge curiously

"Well I planned to head off to the next town" this brought a collection of oohs from the remaining people. I'd like to take the rest of the people who are ready to go with me." replied Kane

Sarge glances round his men who come up with the rough estimate of around 900 people ready to go, to which I roll my eyes. 936 who wear the black cloth remain in town, I'm amazed how useless the supposed 'intelligence' corps was.

Kane offers two conditions which are that he leads the expedition and that this message guy comes with him. Message boy, he couldn't mean...

The nod in my direction from Kane confirmed my suspicions. I'm wearing the light green cloth, I have chosen Sprint and Search as my only skills. I am travelling to a town for no other reason but because Kane wants me to go. I'm leaving Annabeth behind...

Sigh

"Can I know the name of the town we are heading off to?" I reluctantly ask

"Tolbana, and we will be leaving for there at 1:00pm sharp. Do not be late message boy.

-page break

I walk back through town, the streets bare of most people except for the odd beginner getting their gear repaired or catching early lunch.

A message pings as I walk through town and I open it to find Gastalf had sent me something: 'Will be out of contact for a few days'. Sarge is not gonna be happy about that one.

Sigh

I find myself a park bench and lie on it forcing some bread down to curb my growling stomach. The bread tastes of nothing really, if at all possible. Devouring one piece barely settles my stomach but not wanting to have to go through another piece of no taste bread I decide to close my eyes and visualise the fried eggs and sizzling bacon imagining their scent and what they would have tasted like.

I drool away at my dream breakfast for a while until an "Excuse me" comes from my side and reluctantly I disperse my dream for reality.

I open my eyes to see an asian girl with long black hair cut straight across her forehead. She pushes up non-existent glasses out of habit I suppose and clears her throat.

"You should not be sleeping on a park bench, it's not very proper. You should rent a room." Her tone was trying to be formal but anger was sprinkled over it.

Sigh

I check the time on my menu finding it to be 11:49 and with a yawn drag my body still yearning for more rest. I stand up and with a nod at her start to walk, she walks in the other direction not glancing back.

I arrive at the door of the house I had been staying in and take a deep breath before opening the door and stepping inside.

Immediately the mixed smell of strawberry and roasting chicken wafts past my nose the mixture odd but still delightful. Even more so when Annabeth comes out of the kitchen wearing the same blue dress and bounds towards me in joy.

I swear my heart stopped for a few seconds as she nears me the sweet smell of strawberry emanating from her and I think my heart stopped again when she passed right by me. I turned to see her in an embrace with Gareth.

Sigh

I go to sit at the table as I notice 3 plates are set out so I guess the meal is prepared for me too. I sit down and watch as Gareth goes into the kitchen holding a basket of fruit dropping it off then returning and sitting opposite me.

He nods my way, a gleeful smile appearing on his face at the strengthening smell of roasted chicken with apple as Annabeth comes out of the kitchen carrying a large plate.

She sets the plate down in the middle of the table revealing it to be a whole chicken roasted to a tender bronze with equally roasted apples in a ring around the chicken.

Gareth takes the big knife that was also brought and cuts the chicken up between the 3 of us; I get a leg, a wing and a small chunk of breast along with a couple of apples.

Wiping my drool with the handkerchief I dig in to the succulent chicken pleasantly surprised how well the apple complimented it giving it a sweeter taste.

While we eat they begin talking about market prices on food and how recently simple things such as bread has become scarce in supply.

Mustering my courage I swallow the chicken that I was enjoying and state "I'm heading off to Tolbana".

Their conversation remained fixed upon the market pricing of food and scarcity of basics as if they had not heard me.

Sigh

I went back to eating chicken letting their conversation pass over my head till a certain word caught my attention.

"-Tolbana market, it should be on this weekend." exclaims Annabeth

"Oh great idea, but there's been rumours of wasps covering the roads."

"If only we had some sort of bodyguard who would protect us from the wasps"

I almost choke on my chicken as I slam my hands on the table and rise to shout I will be your bodyguard but only succeed in half choking myself. They both stop and look at me questioningly while I save myself and swallow the chicken.

"I will be your bodyguard" I say breathlessly

"Well that's sorted, Ill get the cart, Annie you pack some stuff. We will leave at 1.

Guess my day just got luckier.

**Ok so new characters yaay! Ah i love creating new characters It's always my imagination may not last forever so If anyone has an idea for a person I will consider to use them. **

** next chapter will be up by the end of this weekend, saturday maybe but more likely sunday. **

**cya then**

**-ChazRay**


	11. Chapter 10: Back into the Woods

I am seriously out of luck today I muse as the tree shakes beneath me. Holding tightly onto the branch I peer down below to see a group of 8 wolves circling round my tree. One jumps at the trunk and claws at it ineffectively but still causing the tree to shake.

Well, at least it's only morning so they shouldn't be able to topple the tree until nighttime.

With nothing else to do but hang on the shaking tree with hungry wolves below, I look longingly at the pile of somewhat delicatetly cut wood: it lay there sliced into 4 almost straight planks stacked on one another.

It had taken around 3 hours to cut down the tree and cut the wood into planks and of course the wolves had come just as I finished forcing me to leave it below among the wolves.

That's also the reason why I haven't jumped from tree to tree to get back to town as no way was I going to let my second pile of wood be lost to those damn wolves again. However there did not seem to be any way for me to get the wood, except for of course going down there and picking it up, which would result in a quick death. So not an option.

With no immediate plan coming to my head I decided to latch an arm around the branch and spawn a piece of bread. Then immobilising the hand holding the bread by tying it around with my other arm around the branch, I proceeded to munch on it slowly.

I almost choked on it as the shaking accidentally moved my head too much forward placing the rest of the bread down my throat forcing me to swallow the rest of it in one go. Well that was one way to eat but not a comfortable one.

After regaining my breath I try to use my newly energised brain to figure a method of collecting my wood safely but none came to mind.

Giving up on the idea of ever being able to get that wood I tuck myself around the branch. I didn't leave because I didn't know if the whole exercising after eating affected me in game and sure as hell did not want to find out at the cost of my life.

I started to wonder where everyone is due to the meeting we had last night. Kane had broken the news to everyone and really Gwynevith was the only one who was still a bit unsure about it. Ross and Scarlet were pretty much cool with it after a few seconds of twin mental talk and although Charlesming was seriously not cool with it at first he was convinced by our other member who decided to grace us with his presence.

Gastalf had come out of his room the first time in the week (well as far as most of us knew anyways, he told us that he had actually been making contacts at night around the village. How we don't know but apparently he's made quite a few of them.) He backed up. Kane's plan as it was mostly his own and after that Charlesming was pretty much all right with it.

All in all we decided to meet back at the inn in 1 week and then we all headed to do whatever we were doing. I had been pretty tired even though it wasn't that late and because of that I had woken up at about 3 in the morning. Unable to sleep I had to find something to do.

Seeing as though I had a couple of hours to spend before I could hope to meet my party members I decided to go train my woodcutting skill. Seemed like a good idea, according to the situation I am in right now maybe it wasn't that good. At least I had encountered the wolves in daylight.

I wondered whether to use my second skill slot because staying up here all day is not how I would like my day to go.

While weighing up the pros and cons of having to use us my second skill slot and what it should be, a hail from over to the right took hold of my attention. I glanced round to see the one hailing me was none other than Kane with Gwynevith following behind

He sauntered over towards me with a chuckle and a smile on his face at seeing me stuck in the tree but becomes serious as the wolves turn towards them. They draw their weapons and ready themselves for the wolves as they howl and charge towards them.

The wolves, tongues lolling pounce towards Kane and Gwynevith but the foremost three shatter into polygons as the glowing red blades slice through their targets,Gwynevith's axe had sliced through 2 of them with one stroke.

The sword skills having a short delay left them immobilised as the 2 of the group pounced onto them.

I expected the worst for a moment there as the wolves collided with my fellow companions but was relieved as the wolves did not have a big enough Strength parameter compared to Kane and Gwynevith to knock them over and pin them.

Those 2 wolves were the next to die this time sliced in half by purple glowing weapons.

Although those 2 wolves did not do much themselves they had still opened their enemy up to attacks from the other wolves lowering both Kane's and Gwynevith's bar to a low yellow caused by the multiple claws from each side.

The A.I repeating it's attack pattern once again jumped on Kane and Gwynevith and another 2 were halved. The last 2 wolves uncaring about their companions and showing no fear from the killers of 6 of their brethren swipe their claws lowering the bars to red but pay for it with their lives.

Noticing their too close for comfort encounter with death they let out deep sighs of relief. Upon looking up at me, I must've been making a face or something because they laughed when they looked at me.

"You guys got a death wish?" I comment as I try to make my way down the tree.

"Well don't know about us but those wolves surely had one or they would've run the other way at seeing this baby in action" Gwynevith exclaims as she pats her axe.

"Maybe they were too distracted with you"

"What do you...Drake!"

"What!?"

"They're wolves!"

"Well who am I to say if wolves find you delicious, I'm just making a wild guess that is all"

"Ah we doing a why the wolves attack whoever again? Well surely they'd never attack you unless there is nothing better"

"And why is that?" I planted my feet firmly on the ground and started walking towards them

"My guess is that you taste funny" Interrupts Kane to which we both turned round eyebrows raised to see him grinning almost childishly.

"You've been waiting to use that one for a long time haven't you"

"Well we've been attacked by wolves and boars and I was hoping that the subject of eating would come up...anyways, we better be off."

I reach them, giving Kane a handshake and hugging Gwynevith who took it with mock horror. With that they walk deeper into the forest and collecting my wood I return back to the village.

-page break-

As I walk through the fields I check my woodcutting skill to see it had risen to 9/1000 which was not bad and. I had the wood this time so I was feeling quite proud. Although, I check my inventory space to see that 92% of it is filled up, I can only really cut 1 tree for I couldn't carry any more.

Apart from that the day was looking up and I made my way to the front gate. The universe against me decided it was not a good day for me as I tripped over nothing falling flat on my face inches, literally inches away from the safe zone.

Grumbling and trying to ignore the guffaws of onlookers upon seeing my fall, I pick myself up and walk ,a bit more cautious of nothing, into town.

Making my way to Mr. Bones's place of work (can't really call it a shop) but of course being about half past 6 only a few of the early risers, so about a quarter of the town were up. mentally face palming I travel over to the park a few metres away where they have some comfortable wood benches. Unsurprisingly most of them were empty, the exception being an Npc couple lounging and flirting, jeesh it was barely 6 in the morning.

Rolling my eyes at the loving couple I pop myself on a bench and spread my legs across it stifling a yawn in the process.

Man, i'd forgotten how boring mornings are. No one is up so theres no town atmosphere, I can't go grinding because I lack a sword skill and I don't want to unnecessarily get a skill that I didn't want to use really.

Literally the only thing there is to do is to listen in on what those lovers are talking about, as they had progressed to actually talking. Doing just that I inclined an ear that way hoping to cure the boredom.

"So my dear princess, how about me and you head out of town"

"Head out of town?" the npc female laughs "And where would my chivalrous knight carry me off to?" She giggles

"I would whisk you away to the forest where we could be free together"

"Oh my, aren't you brave, to so willingly go into the forest"

"It is just a forest, my love the trees cannot do us harm"

"But the wolves can"

"...Ah yes...the wolves"

"You seriously didn't know about them?" She sounded a lot less flirtatious and quite concerned along with a tone of surprise.

"Ye...No, its the first I heard of them" he too had lost his flirtatious tone and sounded disappointed at the news.

"Well according to my Pa wolves have been crowding the forests nowadays."

"Your Pa?" He sounded almost elated

"Yes, he said some of the people he knew were attacked by a pack of wolves a while back"

"And who were these people he knew?" Sounded like he was grinning by the way he spoke

"Well...he said they all died"

"Ha, well sounds to me your Pa likes to tell stories, but that's all they are, stories."

"You, you think so?"

"I know so. Lets go, we only have some time before the rest of the village wakes up."

"Well...ok then"

The creaking of the bench and their hurried footsteps sounded their exit as they left.

"Oh young love, such a beautiful thing..."

Having a this is not at all like me moment, I stare blankly into the sky before shaking myself out of it and standing up.

Yawning loudly I stroll bored along town: the streets are dead except for a few npc's waking up gradually and setting up their shops. A few of them are walking around buying things from the shops and generally starting up the village morning.

I head off towards the goods store to restock on some bread and water. I found it pretty easily and opening the door, I walked into the store.

It was cosy and warm which was very comforting after having spent hours in the cool outside. Inside with me was the owner, a veteran man with thin black hair and an equally thinning beard, however his stomach was rounded and large. He nodded at my entrance and leaned drowsily on the counter.

There were also 2 others in the room: 2 npc women, both wearing long brown stitches and carrying a basket which they filled with items around the shop. I would usually have ignored them but I was bored and also the fact that they were filling their baskets without looking as they were busy talking to each other roused my attention.

"Oh did you hear about Susie?"

"Miller's girl?"

"Thats the one, rumour has it she's got a guy"

"Ooh and with all the precautions that Old Miller took"

"Well love just can't be stopped"

"I wish it was like that with-"

Jerking me ears away so as to not actively listen to their gossip, which was surprisingly accurate, I move up to the counter. Opening a trade window with the store keeper I rack up the amount of bread to another 30 pieces and get the same amount of water. I pay for the items and inspired reopen the trade and check how much my planks sell for.

...I was disappointed, only 10 col per plank. I thought about it for a few minutes thinking whether it was worth keeping the wood but feeling that it wasn't I sole 3 out of the 4 pieces as I need the last piece to play around with.

Feeling a bit cheated I turn round to leave and find the women leaving also. They are still talking about something but I was too far to hear the words properly.

Once outside I turn to go towards the inn and of course the ladies had turned the same way and of course they were walking side by side with baskets on tue outer side of their hips filling up the entire street.

Deciding that the universe does not like me I accept that I have to listen to them all the way back. They seemed to be talking animatedly about something so mildly interested I moved a bit closer to hear them properly.

"They say there is a horde of wolves around in the forest, and they prey on travellers. It is rumoured that this horde is of a hundred wolves at least "

"Y'know how people are when the are scared, they tend to over exaggerate"

"It was my cousin who told me this and he's known to not exaggerate over anything."

"But a hundred wolves, at least?"

"He described it as a sea of grey fur charging towards them"

"How did he survive?"

"He climbed a tree obviously, those who ran died and my cousin was the only one to think of climbing the tree, the only one to live to tell the tale."

"You sure your cousin isn't just crying wolf? I mean he is at that age where he needs attention"

"My cousin would never lie to me. Yes he's got an imagination but a seventeen year old would not think of something like that"

"So what about the other people who were with him?"

"Well I don't know never asked him"

"Ask him then and see him tell you he don't know cause he made it all up"

"I will and I'm telling you, you're wrong my cousin wouldn't make up such a fantastical story"

Without waring the both split towards a house on either side of the road and did it with such force that it made me jump a little. Raising my eyebrows at the two women I continued walking along finally reaching the inn.

I check the time to find it to be only a little past 7. Groaning at how slowly time is moving i set off towards the meeting place which was at the back of the inn.

I moved round the inn but stopped halfway as the way was blocked by 2 men standing by an open door in the inn talking. One was standing at the door wearing an apron and the other was dumping what I guess was trash into a large container.

I moved up towards them and leaned on the side of the inn's wall waiting for then to move on and while I waited I listened in on their conversation.

"Blood red eyes along with two giant canines. But that's not the most distinctive thing. That, is it's black fur with white streaks in it. Some say it is a mongrel while others a hybrid from two great beasts. Either way the general consensus is that it's scary." Said the man at the door

"Hmm I hope no one goes into the forest while that thing is running around." Comments the other

Ah but here's the interesting part. According to someone I know, the beast itself did not hunt but sent packs of wolves to capture its meals for it."

"It's an alpha? Well no surprise there, I'd think that all the other wolves are scared of it, I know I would be"

"It's not just an alpha, it's the alpha. A guy at the bar was talking about it a while back. he said that one day wolves had stopped fighting themselves and the different territories seemed to become one. The whole forest is under it's control according to him"

"Sounds terrifying, thankfully I'm not going anywhere near there for a while and I pity anyone that goes there"

The man at the door waved the other off and shut the door behind himself.

Shaking my head at the wolf rumour obsessed town I continue towards the meeting point.

The meeting point was a single tree in a small patch of grass situated behind the inn. Gastalf had been using that as his own nighttime meeting spot according to him so he had asked us to adopt it as our own as well.

Yawning, I plop down by the tree and relax by it closing my eyes.

I contemplated over the mildly interesting morning in town as I had learnt a bit of lore? well more like town rumours which is a pretty nice system. It gives the town a sort of, life that would have been missing if the npc's did not have these preset daily lives.

The rumours had a very delicate touch to it as it included in things that as a player we would know about as in the case of the wolves in the forest. I know it to be true and that there are packs hunting people. I also know that climbing up a tree helps you run away from the wolves which was a nice piece of information if you did not know by now. The sea of wolves was explainable as it was quite possible when the starting 300 went into the forest and one group decided to run or many decided to run causing lots and lots of wolves to gather and follow.

The Alpha was a new tidbit of info that I did not know of. It was interesting that there was rumours of such as thing but it had credit to it as the whole wolves are territorial thing is true and a single pack of wolves followed us throughout most of the forest meaning that it was all the same territory. But to have a single alpha for am entire forest, that's pretty rare...

...

...

...

"ARGHH I'M AN IDIOT!" I roar out

Why didn't I see it before, my god. Well one thing is for sure, the system does give you many chances to try pick up a quest. It makes sense for it to be a quest, well an unofficial one, more like a personal quest. It had all the telltale signs that are normally shown when finding this type of quest: firstly you would hear a rumour about something happening. Normally at that point you would have noticed it was a quest and followed the gossipers and get the whole story out of them. However I did not and had instead left it. The second sign is that if not collected the first time another chance is given or if players go looking round for more information they will meet another gossiper with other details about the same rumour. Those were the women and also the two men from just before. The last sign of this quest is the introduction of a boss of some kind, the alpha wolf in this case or an event such as the whole forest becoming one territory. In this case both came in one which in itself is quite rare as normally events change the environment and cannot be change back easily. However in this case if the alpha is killed then the territories will be split up due to inner conflicts and the forest will go back to normal.

It's weird as no quest window had popped up any time during hearing this...therefore this is not a quest as I had first suspected it of being. If it was a quest it would be something that only a certain number could do, in this case it would be one. So I can believe it is not a quest but an environmental event which changes a certain environment for a period of time. In many cases it is permanently. In this case however it is only until the alpha is killed. The biggest thing about events is that they change something when it starts and when resolved something is changed also...the only thing I can think of that would change would be the wolves territory...which would make a drastic change.

Jumping to my feet with a growing headache I rush to the front entrance of the inn and barge inside. It is dead empty inside but that doesn't matter as I sprint upstairs and bang furiously on Gastalf's and Charlesming's door.

No reply from either of them and their doors remained solidly shut. The idea popping into my head and thankful for it I send a quick 'WAKE UP, COME OUT' message to the both of them.

A few minutes later Gastalf's door opens and he groggily walks put still equipping stuff. He nods towards me with a questioning face. I signal him to wait and wait he does for about another 30 seconds as Charlesming's door opens. He too walks out but in just his boxers and obviously regretting it,

"Woah its cold out here" he shivers and starts to equip stuff

Well revenge is a dish best served cold.


	12. Chapter 11: The Wolves of the Wood

Crashing through the trees glowing with a twilight hue comes a lone, dark grey wolf with black beady eyes. It sprints with quick shallow breaths while a pack of wolves, 8 of them, bound after this lone wolf. The lone wolf is different from its pursuing kind as it runs on 2 legs and not 4.

Suddenly that wolf sharply swerves behind a tree, its leaves rustling with activity. The wolves follow hungrily turning behind the tree to see it devoid of traces of the other wolf.

They sniff around for a few seconds, find no scent in the air and saddened start to disperse in different directions. For only a few seconds however, as the rustling of leaves and a soft thud back at the tree catches their attention immediately. The thick scent of that other wolf fills their snouts and when they turn that wolf's visage fills their eyes.

It stands there leaning slightly on the tree its head facing toward the sky looking at the low sun. Gleaming white teeth become visible as the wolves's mouths open in an almost gleeful smile. Step by step they inch their way closer and closer to this wolf, who ignores the deadly threat.

It notices this threat once 2 wolves have made their way a few metres from it. The last rays of the sun find its way through the trees dimly illuminating the 2 wolves; they appear the same as normal wolves except for the three needle like sticks protruding from their face. The standing wolf is also illuminated revealing a second pair of brown eyes beneath its snout accompanied by its gleaming grin beneath the eyes.

Rustle...A bright green glow appears from above the 2 wolves and they face upwards, each receiving a glowing green sword through their skulls. With a howl they burst into polygons leaving their attackers standing on their graves.

2 more of the 2 legged wolves stand there: one holds a steel rapier, the other a sword along with a knights shield.

Howling at their comrades death the other 6 who are barely meters away pounce towards them. They jump on the 2 standing wolves all at once, jaws snapping with anger.

The weapons glow blood red and with lighting speed cut horizontally across 3 wolves each bringing them into low red. Howling in pain the wolves are pushed back by the blow dropping them beside the 2 figures who stand immobile for a split second before they move into a more defensive position.

Standing up in haste the wolves once again charge the other 2 their intent to kill thick in the air. That does not matter however, as a red glow flashes by 2 of them turn into polygons while a third joins the rest with a wooden needle meeting its neck.

This was only one side and the remaining 3 clawed and bit but most of their frenzied attacks were blocked systematically by the shield of the wolf.

Relentlessly they rip away at the shield slowly deforming it. They are not able to complete doing that though as a glowing blue needle sticks into one turning into similarly blue polygons simultaneously with 2 green glowing swords thrusting through separate wolves killing them too.

Upon the last dying howls of the wolves the moon rises into the air, its iridescent rays illuminating the forest. No wind blows and there is no noise apart from the tired breathing coming from the weapon holding wolves.

Sheathing their weapons they get their breathing under control. The one who holds the shield recovers first and with the cracking of knuckles announces "We're close"

-page break-

We're close, but how close. Damn this is such a pain.

Shaking my head I rid myself of that thought and start to climb the tree after Gastalf. He like Charlesming climb it pretty adeptly while I have a much less aesthetically pleasing climb. It must've been the rain from earlier making the wood slick because I slipped more than I climbed.

Thankfully after a few times of watching me inevitably slide to the bottom of the tree, they climb back down and form a human chain off of a low branch. Jumping up I link with them and I climb on them to the branch. Repeating this process a few times we all manage to get close to the canopy.

Feeling it's high enough we all pick a nice branch to settle down in. I find myself a branch, well there wasn't much choice of what kind of branch I got because they were pretty much all just as uncomfortable and the only way to stay on the was to sit back on the trunk.

Settling down I remove my wolf hood, immediately regretting it when the icy night wind blows on my face. Quickly covering my face with my wolf face hood I snuggle deeper into my wolf clothes thankful of its warmth.

Whispering "good night" to each other the others fall asleep the muffled snores coming from Charlesming. I however stay awake as I'm on watch. It's strange because really no one needs to be on watch when we're this high up but we had learnt that knowing to have someone on watch made us sleep a bit more comfortable of the surroundings.

My eyelids droop out of my control. Gritting my teeth I plunge my face into the cold air snapping me wide awake, then retreat back into the warmth.

Its surprisingly hard to be on watch, really isn't like the movies. It's my 5th night on watch and i'm still having troubles staying awake. Yesterday was the first night I stayed awake for the whole watch and tonight I'll do the same, hopefully.

Going through the memory of last night and how I stayed awake I remember my method and get down to it: I swipe open my menu and open my map.

The map is pretty cool as although it is only a 2-D image it is surprisingly fancy looking: it gives the names of the towns as well as where the forest and different landscapes are, as long as you have explored them. It's cool because the map has to be filled in which is a beautiful thing as it gives me reason to explore literally everything each floor has to offer.

Flicking around the map seeing huge amounts of it unexplored I get a small elated feeling of desire to explore.

After a while I find Horunka and see the snake like line starting from the edge of the forest. At first it heads south but soon swerves to the right and ends up in the opposite direction. From then on its mostly straight going north through the forest. It had taken us 2 days to find out the exact direction we were going through As our compass was the pack of wolves that would appear to hunt us every so often. They got more frequent and frequent as we walked north so we're guessing that it means their spawn point is close. Hopefully the spawn point is the lair of the alpha because well, thats our only lead we have.

The packs have been coming every 30 or so minutes for the last 2 packs so the spawn point should only be an hour or 2 of walking away.

Using the packs as a compass was a great idea, its working pretty well so far and Im getting some good xp and col out of it, along with some materials here and there. He big downside was that we've encountered so many of them all our armour is gone and we're through most of our weapons.

Smartly before we left town 5 days ago, we each bought 4 weapons and a full set of leather. All our armour is gone, the wolves ripped that to shreds when we started moving north. The weapons were doing slightly better: Gastalf and Charlesming are on their third weapon each and Gastalf's last shield. I say last stuff and third but we've still got everything but it is all beaten up. I however, am only on my second weapon as I have mostly been using my wood chips.

Well technically wood needles as I've spent quite some time carving them to be thin and point like needles. The more appropriate word for my wooden needles would be large toothpicks, realistically speaking.

We had hit level 4 on the second day and that had unlocked a third skill slot along with the throwing skill. Since I only have 5 Vitality and a pitiful amount of hit points I decided staying away from the enemy would be a good life decision. I also took sprint for the same reason really but also because running faster felt pretty awesome. Level 5 is close, I'm at 17,360 xp now, only 2,640 xp off. Surprisingly this game is teaching me some basic maths which I'm actually all right with.

I'm still not sure about the Sprint skill because yes its useful in running away from monsters but I've been assigned to be the decoy, which is understandable as I'm apart from throwing my mildly useful toothpicks I am really underpowered, untouchable but underpowered.

The others had taken acrobatics which I almost did take but I thought that I would rather stay away from the wolves instead of dodging it.

After musing this I decided to close my map, open up my skills menu and check them out:

Woodcutting 11/1000

Throwing 32/1000

Sprint 14/1000

Man my woodcutting was behind. Well to be fair I had only cut down 1 tree since entering the forest and then basically turned it into thousands of wood chips which didn't give me any the other 2 are racing on ahead which is satisfying to know that not all skills are slow like woodcutting.

Opening my inventory I spawn my battered wolf tusk sword, I didn't buy an axe because I didn't think I was going to be cutting a tree. Spawning some wood chips I start to carve them into the large toothpicks that are the weapon of my choice. Don't get me wrong I can use the wood chips as they are for throwing but the sharpening adds an extra 1-2% of damage which is always helpful...

I carve away for a while keeping an eye on the time situated on the top left of my menu. At 10:00 in the night I take a wood chip and chuck it at Gastalf. The wood bounces off his head and he bursts into action ripping his sword out of his scabbard while balancing on the branch.

Upon seeing my cheeky grin he gives me a I'll get you back look before settling down for his watch. With that I snuggle deeper into my wolf clothing and let sleep take me...

-page break-

Sleep soon leaves me as the bright morning rays caress my face gently warming me up. I arise from my slumber seeing the time to be 8 and no alarm. Being out of town meant that you had no alarm in the morning. Best thing about sleeping outside.

With a yawn I hug the tree trunk and slowly slide down, thankfully the wood was not as wet as last night so I had some control as to how fast I was going down.

Reaching the floor at a speed a bit too fast for my sake and 20% of my health sakes too, I acknowledge the others as they descend with more grace.

We all spawn our daily breakfast of our oh so loved 1 col bread and 2 col water. We lean on the tree trunk munching away silently at our breakfast, it was too early in the morning to participate in talking for us, also our talking sometimes attracted wolves situated nearby we had sadly learned a few days prior. Talking about wolves...

After 25 minutes of finishing off breakfast and doing early morning stretches Gastalf and Charlesming head back up into the trees waving me off as I sprint off at 107% speed.

I sprint for about 2 minutes before the familiar sounds of the howling pack reach my ears and soon after so do they reach my eyes. Turning on the spot and throwing a needle at one I run back to our ambush spot throwing a needle at the wolves with less than three needles.

When I return to the ambush spot, all the wolves have 3 needles stuck in them and 2 of them die immediately with a sword from above. The remaining wolves immediately aggro on them and we do our usual tactic: killing of Charlesming's side first while Gastalf defends and takes a little damage, then helping him one on one against the remaining 3.

It works as well as always and soon the wolves are nothing but polygons disappearing into the air.

Gastalf took a bit of damage and his pelt ripped, so he threw it on the ground in front of us and spawned another pelt. We had plenty to spare and they were better than nothing.

With that done we climb back up the tree, them helping me up, till we reach a decently high branch. We then jump to the next tree. This is so we don't spawn any packs after us but it will slow us down a lot.

They jump easily to the next branch thanks to their acrobatics and the turn arms outstretched ready to catch me if I fail to jump far enough. Sadly that has happened quite a few times and as I jump and have them catch me I add another one to that lengthening list of failed jumps. This was not going to be fun.

Another jump into the helpful hands of the other 2 and I make it onto another tree branch successfully. Gastalf starts to climb around tree but stops when his eyes see what is on the other side. Curious, Charlesming and I peek round.

I see a large hill in the middle of the forest, devoid of trees and mossy green. A large hole is on the side of this mountain. A cave then...oh. I realise and suspect the others have realised this too; that's the cave we're looking for.

The cave entrance is decently big we are shown, by 6 wolves walking out side by side through the entrance. 2 follow behind making a pack and once out of the cave they howl and sprint off southwards. Definitely the lair.

It's around midday now and although we found the lair, attacking it in broad daylight is pretty suicidal. To decide on a plan of action we hop as silently as we can to a few trees away.

Once we've made our way out of sight of the cave we untrusting of whether the wolves could still hear us communicate in hand signals.

I take both hands, clench them into fists and put them on top of one another. I then swing horizontally gesturing to me. They nod in understanding. Pleased, I continue by collecting my imaginary fallen wood, creating a cave with my hands and placing the wood under the rainbow. More nods. A finger inside the cave, shocked facial expression pointing outwards. More nods, bit more confused nods though. Point at us, finger walk inside cave, hand slide across throat. They think about my idea for a minute before bot h nodding. Gastalf gestures we should go further away and with slight reluctance on my part, we start to jump tree to tree once more.

-page break-

After about another 2 hours of jumping from tree to tree, failing a lot less then usual which was nice. We stop and I climb down spawning an iron sword, shiny and spotless for the time being.

I start to hack away at the wood while the other 2 laze about in the trees. The forest is silent except for my rhythmic chopping which is strange because I thought there would have been birds but apparently not. Maybe developers forgot the bird environmental sounds or maybe its event related. Either way there are no bird sounds which makes the forest seems a lot creepier than it should be.

After about 15 minutes of me hacking away my rhythm is interrupted with a high pitched whistle from above. Thrusting my sword in the ground I turn and sprint in the direction of the cave.

The pack meets me after about a minute and I give them a welcome of needles before leading them towards their death.

After we finished them off I pulled my sword out of the ground and continued to hack away at the tree...

...3 hours later I find myself sitting beside 2 big chunks of wood. Gastalf and Charlesming appear from behind the trees in front of me carrying a large pile of twigs and leaves and as they walk towards me it disappears into their inventory. They each pick up a piece of wood while I get traded all the pelts and teeth. My inventory up to 100% I'm forced to carry a sword in each hand, thankfully being able to sheath one to have a free hand.

It had taken me 2 hours to cut down the tree and another 1 to split it in 2. In that time we had 12 packs that had attacked bring me to a pretty 560 xp from level 5. However our gear had taken a huge toll. Gastalf was using and breaking his battered shields, only 2 remain. Charlesming was out of rapiers and now both of them had taken almost all my swords. Thankfully I have a couple of thousand wooden needles left so I'm sitting pretty on the weapon front.

Once everyone had their inventory spaces maxed out with wolf pelts, teeth and wood we climbed up the tree. Although we had 100% full inventories it did not make the climbing any harder which I am truly thankful for because its hard enough without being weighed down.

We jump across the trees again making our way back towards the cave entrance. The sun is quite low as it is early evening and as we make our way back to the cave the evening closer and closer to night and the forest becomes darker and darker.

Finding ourselves back at the cave entrance we climb up a bit more and prepare ourselves for sleep.

I'm on first watch so I get to see evening turn to night and watch as the wolves become dire wolves. Quite horrifying as they grow and spikes burst out from their back. The wolves also seem to be returning. My very early theory that there was a single pack hunting was quickly found wrong as 2 different wolf packs, arrived and went into the cave one behind the other.

There was a large gap between them and the 3rd pack. Seems like the forest is quite busy, to have so many packs out but with the information that another 'expedition' had come from the starting city to Horunka, it was not too surprising in reality to see so many packs.

About 1 in 40 packs came back is what I guessed which was comforting but disturbing at the same time as that meant at least 1 person in every 40 battles had died. 6 packs came back in my watch.

Waking Gastalf quietly I snuggle in my wolf clothing and go to sleep. It feels as though seconds had past when Charlesming shook me awake with a wolf paw glove over my mouth to muffle any sounds that might escape my lips.

After a few seconds and no sounds he releases me and I check the time. 5 am. Ok so we got 1 hour to set up cool. As quietly as I could I climb down the tree and upon touching the ground prepare myself to sprint. As I suspected a pack of dire wolves come out of the cave sniffing and upon seeing me growl deeply and charge towards me.

Sprinting ahead of them I lead them away. Looking back I catch the thumbs up from Gastalf and a 1 from him.

Thanking that the system does not make me tired and perform worse I sprint in a large circle keeping close to the other two but not within sight therefore out of aggro range, I keep this circle going for a whole hour. In all honesty I would have been able to stop after about 20 minutes as my slow but constant throwing of needles slowly whittled and killed the pack. I kept 1 alive though so that no more packs would spawn.

So it ended up being a 30 minute game of chase with me and this wolf until I decided 10 minutes before dawn that I would go back to the cave. Cutting towards the cave I sprint towards it and once in sight throw the last needle killing the wolf behind me.

I go to the front of the cave and see that the 50 minutes I spent playing merry go round with wolves was well spent: They had blocked off most of the cave with the 2 big bits of wood, leaving only a small exit on the far left for the wolves to escape. The exit however led to a giant enclosed circle of leaves and sticks piled to knee height. That should stop them for a bit.

Upon seeing me they light multiple sticks on fire with their flint and stone. The goods vendor at Horunka sold them and we thought it was a good idea to get some to make fires, just didn't think it would be to this scale.

Well if the forest burns down then so be it. The sticks catch fire and we quickly spread it around setting the 2 large blocks of wood which are covered in leaves on fire. Well the leaves are on fire so it looks like the wood is on fire which is all we need really. The flaming circle beside us gives off a heavy heat and also quite a bit of smoke comes off of our burning things.

I look at my clock, 5:55 am, 5 minutes till morning

The earthquake of howls from inside concludes that we've woken up the wolves and we got an inkling the magnitude of how many wolves there are inside. Were inside, as they all, in a panic upon seeing the fire rush outside and into the circle. The foremost turn back to go back into the cave but the huge stream of wolves coming from the cave does not allow that.

Within a minute the circle is brimming with hundreds of dire wolves howling in fear and anguish unable to escape the fire as it encloses them but leaves just enough space to not have them act like cornered animals, which technically they are but within the system it hasn't been recognised as that yet.

Feeling satisfied with our work we sneak around the side far away from the wolves as we can luckily aggroing none. The wolves have turned and are starting to make their way back but with so many wolves freaking out over the fire the ones who have seen the exit back into the cave are having a hard time getting there.

Those wolves hopes were smashed with a smile as we pushed on the wood fully enclosing the wolves and giving us space to get into the cave. The pained howls of lost hope is like music to our ears.

With the torturous sound of wolves filled with pure fear, we walk inside, with 2 giant appearing to be burning blocks of wood behind us, look for the monster that hopefully resides here...

AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

The sound pierces the sky smashing into our ear drums. Covering our ears against the earth shaking howl We look round for the producer and find it easily: The shadow in the corner of the cave seems to grow into a large shapeless form as if it were a slumbering beast waking from its rest.

The shadows seemed to retreat to the left hand side of the form and they seem to sharpen unnaturally becoming fur black as the night. The other side devoid of all shadows smoothens and turns a blinding white.

This form half covered in darkness opens its eyes. Its blood red eyes pierce through the darkness staring at us not in fear or hate or anger, but in hunger.

A single giant black paw reaches out of the shadow and claws the ground making it screech when its hand sized claws rake across. A white paw, follows up creating the same sadistic screeching sound.

Its face with those piercing red eyes accompanied with a gleaming white smile of rows of canines deadly sharp comes into the light too. Its face like its body is split into a sharp pointy black and a smooth white.

Its tongue travels around its lips licking them, anticipating what we would taste like. Its tongue retracts and it raises its head to the ceiling.

AUUUUUUUUUU!

Lowering its head back down to where its eyes line with ours a bar pops up on its head along with 3 green health bars at its side: [Mongrel]

Bit of a lame name, suiting but lame. However the coolness factor of its name flies out of my thoughts as [Mongrel] pounces at us.

Instinctively I throw myself to the side landing hard on my shoulder. No time to think about the non existent pain as [Mongrel] lands gracefully, turns and pounces at me in a fluid motion. Pushing off the floor, jumping sideways I manage to get out of the way but a claw swipes past me grazing my chest.

Slamming into the floor my health on low red thanks to the combined environmental and claw damage, I immediately prepare another dodge but thankfully [Mongrel] cannot do the pounce three times in a row it seems. It turns towards me however the hungry smile printed on its face.

A pair of glowing green swords rip at either side of it wipe that smile off along with most of its first bar of health as it drops to a low red. So a very high damage but low health.

With an angry howl it swerves towards Gastalf who holds one of his battered iron shields along with his 3S anneal blade. A pair of claws rip at the shield shredding it to ribbons within barely more than a second or two. Its jaw opens wide and surges towards the shieldless Gastalf but stops with a howl of pain as a sword pierces through its left flank.

The ground cracks underneath its paws as it leaps into the air landing back in the corner. The shadows envelop it as growls fill up the room. Thankful for the breathing space I down one of my 2 healing potions and watch my health slowly return to yellow and on its way to green.

I lose concentration over that though as [Mongrel], once again residing within the shadows, stands up its crimson coloured eyes a mix of hunger and hate. Something seems strange about it: it looks taller, much taller at least 12ft high.

My queries are answered as [Mongrel] bursts out of the corner wielding a large green glowing claymore. Reflexively I jump to the side and an almighty bang behind me sends dust and bits of dirt into the air. EH? It can use Sword Skills?

No time to think about that I get back up on my feet I prepare for another attack but only a faint red glow and the sound of earth being crushed fills my senses. The red light comes towards me and the sound gets louder. Bursting from the dust comes the claymore slicing through the earth. jumping into the air dodging the wildly swung sword I return back to the ground unharmed and without hesitation sprint to the other side of the room.

I wasn't the only one who wanted to get out the dusty area as Gastalf and Charlesming both join me within seconds and so does [Mongrel]. It comes lumbering out of the dust not used to being on 2 legs.

Taking 2 of my needles out I throw them simultaneously causing the second health bar of [Mongrel] to go down almost to yellow.

Roaring on pain it raises its weapon and with a purple hue stumbles towards us. Gastalf and Charlesming charge forward getting too close for it to hit but it doesn't care as its aggroed onto me.

Its weapon comes crashing down at lightning speed and even though I dodged sideways the earth raised by such a blow buffeted me back down to yellow. Immobile [Mongrel] provides a perfect target for the others as they charge to slice at its legs.

Recovering within a split second [Mongrel] dances its feet out of the path of the swords causing only grazing injuries but still bringing it down to red. Jumping back giving us space it charges instantly sweeping its blade horizontally but more controlled this time no longer slicing through the floor.

The others luckily have acrobatics so jumping over is difficult but not impossible as they pass over as the blade slices the air in half. I'm far enough away and. I throw another 2 needles at it bringing it almost down to 1 bar.

Turning at the end of its Sword Skill [Mongrel] instantly raises its sword and smashes it downwards slicing off Charlesming's left arm before crashing into the ground. My eyes widen in shock as I see the severed limb floating in the air for a second before bursting into tiny little blue polygons.

The scream of rage and pain from Charlesming brings me back to my senses and I watch as he slices with no sword skills the hand [Mongrel]. Immobile for almost a second Mongrel goes down to his last health bar but instead of something happening again it just rips its sword out of the ground and begins its assault anew.

It swings its sword without Sword Skills making them faster and slightly less deadlier, well would kill me any way if I was hit Sword Skill or not. Charlesming and Gastalf can do nothing but jump, roll and duck the blade as it furiously tries to hit its mark. I fire another volley of 2 needles slowly pincushioning its body.

A razor sharp back paw kicks Gastalf in the chest sending him flying and smashing into a wall. He drops to the ground just hitting red and downs a potion angrily.

I release another 2 needles as Charlesming runs around the legs causing [Mongrel] sword to be useless. Kicking its feet out angrily trying to hit Charlesming makes it look like its doing a sort of jig which is quite hilarious to watch in the current situation.

Its health on low yellow, [Mongrel] jumps back and slices upwards with its sword grazing up Charlesming's chest bringing him to red and raising him slightly into the air. Switching directions the claymore grows purple and sprinting I run towards Charlesming as the sword flies down. Tackling Charlesming in the air I wait for the blade to slice me in half but the clanging of metal tells me I'm safe for this swing at least.

Landing on the ground with Charlesming I throw 2 more needles while Gastalf kneels underneath the large glowing blade, his shield disappearing into the air and cracks spreading on his blade.

[Mongrel] suddenly stops and with an earth shaking roar jumps back giving us space. its bar is on red and Mongrel who howls into the ceiling gives off a lot of bad vibes. Mongrel flails violently howling in pain its head moving back and forth, back and forth. The head, a blur looks to be splitting and soon the head stops moving and we see that here are 2 of them: one full black, the other full white. Its body does the same and splits into separate bodies, along with its health bar which also divides into 2.

The full black [Mongrel] lowers itself down onto 4 legs its blood red eyes full of animalistic desires whereas the white one stays standing and holding the claymore. The name tag duplicates however.

"You guys kill Black, I'll get White" I scream as I get off of the floor and sprint towards white [Mongrel].

I throw my needles but it blocks them with its sword. Surprised at how the AI is learning I sprint under the oncoming blade and it smashes into the floor behind me. Moving through its legs I see it spin its blade towards me from the right side glowing blood red.

Cutting towards the blade I meet it head on and as it fills my view I commando roll underneath it. With a controlled change the blade lowers itself slightly and it slices through my feet bringing me down into low red.

Screaming with a mixture of fear and anger more than pain I throw another 2 needles which its dodges easily. Footless I stand up and continue to sprint awkwardly and slowly while an unbearable itch and burning sensation emanates from the open wound.

[Mongrel] holds its sword pointed at me and bright green as I make my way over to a wall. Facing back to make eye contact I roar at it as it howls back and charges me the bright green tip soaring towards me.

Dropping onto the ground as the sword crashes into the wall behind me I take out another 2 needles. The dust floating everywhere reveals only an outline of [Mongrel] but the grunting sounds coming from this outline makes me think its trying to pull out its blade.

I give it no chance to do such a thing and my 2 blue glowing needles fly over to Mongrel and with 2 soft thuds the sounds of struggling ceases. The dust slowly settles revealing white [Mongrel] to be stumbling backwards its health bar gone.

It stumbles with a pained whine and upon reaching the fresh corpse of black [Mongrel] it topples over on top of it. When together they seem to merge together but before they get halfway they shatter into the sky. The blue polygons disappear leaving nothing but a rewards screen behind. A ping beside my head acknowledges me as level 5.

Sliding down to sit by the wall I call over Gastalf and Charlesming who come with large, tired smiles on their faces.

Gastalf now also is missing an arm, his left one too, his blade is also shattered and only the hilt remains. Charlesming fares about the same but he looks happy, which from the past week and a bit its the first time I've seen him happy. Although he does have a empty element in his eyes, revenge leaves a kind of emptiness or so I've heard but I feel quite fulfilled, although with 2 feet less.

They plop either side of me and we all open our reward screens: 1200xp damn, 180col, Eye of an Alpha. I checked out the eye info window but it was only a trophy nothing special. However I also got another reward screen that popped up once I closed the original. This one said Last Hit Bonus on the top of it and. I opened it to reveal 'Mongrel's Pelt'. Opening the info window I gave a low whistle.

Its worn as a cloak, has the defence of chain-mail armour but the weight of leather and also has 2 minor abilities: Wolf Form. User gets 10% increase to speed and takes guise of Black Wolf, lasts for 1 hour, once per day. Mongrel Learning. 10% increase to skills and stats, last for 1 hour, once per day.

Wow this is pretty cool...

I immediately without hesitation spawn the cloak after removing my other wolf clothing. The cloak appears, but not alone: It appears with a wolf head as a helmet and its back paws shrunken slightly to fit my feet. I check the cloak itself and see that it has pockets to which I fill up with needles and my last health potion, as well as an emergency meal.

The gasps of awe from the others suggest that what I'm wearing is pretty cool and wanting to get a look at it I take the stuff off and have a look at it myself: It is white with black highlights on the end, damn. I touch the smooth fur that get sharp and prickly at the black highlights, so it is exactly like it was before sweet. The boots had the claws albeit a lot smaller but still there but the head lacked the eyes, well to be fair. I was carrying one anyways.

"Whoa, how'd you get that?" Asks Charlesming

"Well I got the last hit bonus, apparently" I shrug my shoulders in the I'm just lucky like that pose.

"Well figures, guess they were still the same monster even though they split up" muses Gastalf from the other side.

"Ah I was going to ask you how did you—"

The howling of many, many wolves outside interrupts our chat and I was shocked as I'd completely forgotten about them. The earthquake of wolves running brings fear in our hearts and we glance towards the entrance of the cave waiting with bated breath for the wolves to come inside.

But none come, maybe it's because of the 2 giant blocks of wood that have thankfully caught fire and are now properly burning. Well with that amount of wood we have a few hours maybe less if the wolves decide to brave it.

Well first things first we wait until our health bars are full and while waiting for mine to get back up to full Charlesming's arm materialised attached to him.

That was a huge load off of all our chests as really I had been trying to ignore the fact that I have no feet, like I can still move with them but its akin to having 2 wooden legs. I did have a nagging feeling that because there was a game there would be some way to recover limbs, but getting free regeneration is amazing. I really should have freaked out about my feet a bit more though but I guess was too distracted with the cool loot.

After another few minutes everyone limbs had reappeared and we decided to form a plan of action.

"Hey Gastalf, could you write a message for the guys back in town?" I ask with a sly smile

"Just tell me what to write"

**Ok so sorry I got one in this week, well tis been helluva busy week so Im pretty amazed I got this done. Anyways hope you enjoyed it and will get next chapter up next weekend (very busy weeks lately sorry T_T)**

**-ChazRay**


	13. Chapter 12: The second expedition

**Sorry I'm late with this just that its been a hard past week and a bit and will be the same for the rest of this week and possibly the next so my chapters will be s bit slow for the rest of this month sorry. Well enjoy anyways!**

_2 Days earlier_

Flicking through my menu, the odd dinging sound echoing as I shuffle down the list, I peer at the multitude of names sorted alphabetically. Zooming past X something catches my eye and I abruptly stop the shuffling. As I suspected it was whom I was looking for.

Swiping my menu away I pick up the feathered quill that the vendors sell and scribble down the name on my lengthening list of people.

Stifling a yawn I restore my friend list and rubbing away the tiredness continue to look down the list...

...Finally the menu rebounds off the bottom of its page announcing the end off my friends list. With a semi-relieved sigh I close the menu and with renewed vigour tackle the names written down.

"Hmm" I start moving the names around on different pieces of paper allocated around the table but with the large list of names in front of me I decided I would need more space.

Rising from the wooden chair rubbing my numb buttocks I shuffle towards the large empty floor beside the fireplace, its fire snuffed out long ago.

Sitting down cross-legged my buttocks complaining I spread the empty sheets of paper in a circle around me. Dipping my quill in ink and with a yawn escaping I ben down to my task.

-page break-

Knock knock knock

My eyes snap open to see a thin layer of paper on the wooden floor beside me. Getting off of the floor, my bones creaking and muscles cold and tightened, I let out a loud tired yawn.

Knock knock knock

Collecting up the pieces of paper I bunch them up unceremoniously and shove them into the stone cold fireplace. Spawning a flint and steel I relight the fire and watch as the flames grow and lick hungrily at the paper.

Knock knock knock

Setting fire directly to the paper thus speeding the process of burning, the paper glowsember-like and within seconds chars black crumpling into ash.

Knock knock knock

Standing up with a sigh and a mild headache knocking on my skull, I stroll over towards the door. Swinging it open I look outside at the knocker: The man stood put there wore basic grey padded cloth along with equally as grey pants, both oddly crisp and well kempt. The lack of a sword was noticeable but we were in the middle of town so no qualms there.

Looking into the man's face I notice the easily recognisable face of the message guy: his black hair was oddly unkempt and let down hanging just above his jaw. I've guessed him to be in his early thirties but it is more than possible for him to be younger if he would just lose the squarely shaved stubble and that little quirk of his.

"Is it morning already?" I say with a yawn

His mild look of concern did not slip by me but he quickly wiped the expression from his face before, with a sigh, tells me that "yes, it is that time".

Nodding I go through the door and he steps out of the way taking position behind me staying out of the way while I equip my armour.

Trudging downstairs I wave at the male Npc whose house I currently live in. He is currently cooking something in the kitchen but responds to my wave with his own, he didn't even look. Maybe an Npc system thing.

Walking out the house I feel the loneliness of the streets as around 12 players are walking through the street within my view. Tolbana was not really that different from the Starting City however the huge difference in residents made it seem like a whole new world.

To my knowledge there are around a thousand and a bit players currently in Tolbana as in reality no one else but theres people have had the chance to come to Tolbana. We had close to a one to one ratio of beta testers to normal players here which didn't really mean much to me but to a lot of other people it meant that half the people they met on these streets were enemies if a kind.

The reception committee had been quite different this time as well we had around 700 people who had come with me so it did seem a bit like an invasion. Back in Horunka they had been friendly and advising but here they were downright cold.

Well in all honesty when we arrived at Tolbana and we saw the beta testers I could feel the hate emanating from the people around me. So the two sides haven't gotten off to s bad start because yes they didn't give us any info and guidance to help us get here and they snagged all the good hunting spots but I can't blame them. If I'm going to have to share a limited number of resources with close to 30,000 people I'll use my knowledge to my advantage.

Not everyone is having the same view though and Tolbana is a bit icy at the moment.

Shaking the thoughts out of my head I start to walk where I'm supposed to be going and sightsee on the way. Tolbana is huge and although I've been here for 2 days I haven't explored close to half of it yet. There are some pretty cool things here in Tolbana such as the parks and the market which is on every weekend. Also the coliseum is a very interesting choice of structure to be within the city.

Reaching my destination far quicker than I thought it would be I look back to make sure message boy is there, which he is and see his eyes drooping sleepily.

Turning back I head off towards the front gate of the town which is void of life except for 2 npc guards standing tall with their pikes and a small person shivering slightly in the cool morning under their shabby cloak.

Moving towards this person I stop beside the stranger looming over and I ask

"Are you...Princess?"

Visibly perking up at the name the hooded figure pulls down the hood revealing a young girl freckles littering her face along with her blond hair tied into 2 pig tails resting on each shoulder.

"Yes?" Her high squealing voice of a not yet pubescent girl accompanies her slightly scared expression.

"Kane and Messenger Boy" I introduce myself and the guy behind me.

A sigh comes from behind me.

"Messenger Boy? What a funny name" her expression becomes more relaxed and childish along with a small giggle.

Another sigh

"Not his real name, just makes it easier for the rest of us" I explain to Princess

"Oh, so what is it?"

"Hmm I'll give it a try. It's—"

"—Hey" a shout drowns my words and I turned to see who the culprit is.

Gwynevith appears round the corner of one of the streets dragging 2 people by their collars. We look in mild horror as she drags the mercilessly across the ground towards us.

"Hello Gwynevith" I try to keep my eyes from staring at her poor victims.

"Hi guys, just dragging in the new comers"

"Yes, we can see that"

She reaches us and she unceremoniously drops the 2 people on the floor. Standing up quickly with lightly blushing is a young man, in his early twenties, if that. His curly ball of hair covers most of his head but no beard or moustache is apparent. He looks quite nerdy with his body of one who spends a lot of time sitting along with his nervous twitch suggesting he must have been quite a gamer.

Reminded me a bit of Drake but I never noticed him with that twitch. I must check on him when I meet him again.

The young guy introduces himself as Calitharsis to which I am now accustomed to believe it is some sort of conspiracy to make a strange name, after going through that list i can proudly say that I am one of few with an actual name.

My hopes optimistic of having someone with a real name, I turn to look at the other person, to find him napping on the floor to everyones astonishment. Looking at each other questioningly at what to do, Gwynevith shakes him lightly on the shoulder with a "Wake up gramps".

"Hmm, oh we here?" The man his face wrinkled with age opens up his eyes and stands up from the floor nonchalantly.

Immediately Gwynevith bends slightly as if ready to pounce and we all look at her with a curious expression.

The man looks around at the people gathered giving me a full view of his wrinkled face with a thick grey moustache and thick, scruffy grey hair.

He introduces himself with a less than sane giggle as Patoicos. My hopes crumbled into little granules of despair. Well at least Gwynevith is a name, one out of 5.

Shaking my head solemnly I address everyone present.

"Ok we should get going, i'll give you introductions on the way. Name is Kane by the way"

With that I walk out of the gates and out of the safety zone of Tolbana.

-page break-

Walking on the road through the fields I can se and hear everyone getting along decently well: Princess is asking questions without pause towards Gwynevith who is taller, which is pretty surprising to notice as Gwynevith is quite small. Message Boy is walking behind me munching on some bread with a teary look in his eye. Calitharsis is hanging at the back hobbling along as if his youth had been sucked out of him, the opposite of Patoicos as he skips ahead. Yes skips, ahead of us humming a tune known only to him. By now I have deduced that he's put a lot of points into agility as he once again circles around us falling behind and catching up quickly.

The fields were decently empty with only maybe a hundred early risers fighting in the morning chill. They were soloing boars which was not too inefficient but it is one of the best spots the normal players have.

Finishing his bread Message Boy taps me on the shoulder and I turn with a questioning look.

"Why can't we just kill the boars like them?" He points his thumb towards the other players

"Well we have our spot can be a lot more efficient"

"Can be?"

"You'll see" ending the conversation with a wise nod before changing direction off the road.

We walk for another twenty or so minutes stopping abruptly at the edge of a lake. its waters were crystalline and calm creating the image of it bring a mirror so smooth its waters looked. Although the lake was interesting what was around it was the main reason we were here: spawning around the lake are giant pink, fleshy worms sort of wiggling its body, well what was visible anyways as through experience a lot of it is still hidden underground.

The worms are the main mob around this zone and it does give a decent amount of xp as the expedition had found out when we had passed this point two days prior. However most deemed that the mob was not worth the trouble killing, partially because it dropped nothing of worth and also because of its pesky attack pattern which made it terribly inefficient to xp grind.

Barking an order at my party they all formed a rough circle, shoulders touching, and readied their weapons with a confused look as to why they are doing this.

Instead of answering the looks I walk over to one of the worms and slice my sword across it causing it to aggro. With a pained squeal the [Worm] burst into the ground disappearing from view and I quickly jog back towards my party members and take place in the circle.

We stood tense in the circle waiting but nothing happening. This was the pesky thing that made them very inefficient as they could take up to minutes to retaliate. It had been a nuisance of an hour when the expedition first walked through because the worms slowed us down to a crawl causing the ten minute walk around the lake into a full hour.

It was probably the only battle that had to have more than a hundred people in the vanguard killing off the worms so the rest of us could move forward.

As I think of this I almost miss the faint sound of crunching earth. However I am able to raise my weapon in front of me as the worm bursts out of the ground head butting me and using the reverse momentum to burrow beneath the ground once more.

My health bar still a healthy green but a small crack appears on my steel two-handed which I had used to block most of the damage. The worms did not have a lot of health, neither did they have a high defence but their attack was decently high, not as much as the wolves or nepents but not too far off.

Positioning my weapon above my head I activate the «vertical crush» sword skill. Once more I wait along with the others for the worm to come out from below and similarly everyone readies a sword skill.

Once again rocketing out of the ground comes the worm at Calitharsis this time but ready for it, as his sword thrusts out knocking the worm back, its health bar lowered dramatically and once again it disappears into the earth.

Another annyoing thing about the worm: they can change targets when burrowed picking a random victim as far as I know, making tanks useless.

Standing in our circular formation for another 30 seconds or so of unbroken silence the worm comes at us for a last time as Gwynevith's axe blurs downwards slicing the worm in half and cracking the ground underneath.

the loss of tension was visible as everyone seemed to sigh with relief and break formation. It had been what would be considered a long battle to us now. Giving them a rest for a minute I then get them to resume the formation as I wonder off to aggro another worm.

Away from their view I produce a smile and walk past multiple worms before turning back towards the party.

"Here we go!" I shout to my party who give me a confused look which is quickly replaced with a shock one as they realise what I'm doing.

Charging ahead I nick the first worm...

-page break-

The wind blows gently on our faces as we stand back to back peering towards the ground as if we could see through it. Our weapons, replaced about an hour ago, are poised ready to strike. Nothing can be heard but the heavy breathing from Calitharsis to my right.

Suddenly the ground explodes with worms as they fly simultaneously towards the party. Slashing my weapon down I destroy mine and the sound of bursting polygons from behind say Gwynevith has done the same. princess shrieks and out of the corner of my eye I see her smacked in the chest and fall to the ground as her worm disappears. Beside her is Calitharsis who does a little better, managing to drive his sword into the worms back as it flees to the earth. Patoicos fares much better as the sound of screaming worm and his joyous laughter suggest he is doing just fine. Bashing into my back is Messenger Boy who slumps onto the floor his breath smashed out of him, his health bar is yellow so no worries yet.

Seeming to want to avenge their friends quickly the worms seemed to have done a 180 and burst out of the ground just seconds later. Without tome to get ready we play it by foot: I turn round and stab the worm coming towards Messenger Boy who then gets the worm impaled on his sword killing it. The whooshing sound and bursting of polygons from Princess's side suggest Gwynevith helped. The cries of victory along with the slashing of the air with his daggers announce Patoicos's kill and joining in with the victory cries is Calitharsis as his blade slices open the worms stomach thus ending its virtual life.

Ping

We all turn towards the sound to see a levelled up window above Princess's head and we congratulate her. Now that she has turned level 3 we did what we came to do, so I tell them to take a quick break while I open my menu to check some things out. The first thing I check out is my xp which is only 18784 not bad but still not level 5. The others had all hit level 3 with the exception of Messenger Boy who had only hit level 2 but should be close to levelling by now.

Apparently he didn't fight a lot and is by far the worst fighter here, even Princess is better then him and she has put all her point into Vit. Though dies get hit a lot so she needs the points. Also having almost double the health that everyone else in the party makes her a good tank, although she uses a dagger.

Princess was probably one of the people who had freaked out over dying and spent their points on Vit, even I thought of it but decided not to waste the points. Though she is only twelve I muse. The concepts of death should not be too apparent to her yet so she must have had another reason for her putting all her points in Vit.

While fiddling with the ideas on why Princess did that I break out of it for a second to announce that "we should head back before night falls" before returning back into my pensive state.

We start to head back and immediately everyone takes up the positions that kind of do suit their personalities: Calitharsis hangs lazily at the back with Princess who holds onto his hand. His face of despair suggests that he had no choice in the matter. Patoicos frolics ahead, seriously the man had an unlimited amount of energy, it was terrifying. Messenger Boy keeps himself rigidly in the middle close enough to everyone yet far enough away. Gwiynevith looks a bit lonely as she no longer has Princess bombarding her with questions of all sorts.

I slow down enough to allow Gwynevith to come beside me.

"You miss it?" I ask nonchalantly

"Yes, Horunka was so small and quaint, here there are too many people." She hangs her head looking sadly to the ground

"Ohl thats nice to know but I actually meant did you miss the old party"

"Ah yes, yes of course,"

"You don't sound very convincing there" I give a small chuckle

"Oh ha ha, seriously I do miss them we went through a lot together y'know"

"Hmm I do get you, I do miss the boar wrestling kid"

A sigh comes from in front

"You do know it's only been a week" says Messenger Boy

"A week is a long time in this world, who knows what could happen within such a time" I reply after a few seconds of self debate

"Hmm he has got a point there, only a week ago I was still fighting boars with a bunch of people who I really had no idea who they were." chimes in Calitharsis as his face contorts in thought, maybe trying to remember the names of those so called people.

"Only a week ago I was having to walk everywhere but look at me now, I cannot stop running hahahaha!" Blurts Patoicos as he jumps around us with a maniacal smile accompanied with a maniacal laugh. He does seem to enjoy being able to move around so much but for someone his age its understandable.

"Oh me, me next. Hmm...only a week ago I went on a really cool adventure with a bunch of people, you guys. Just like my brother did after the red man spoke. He was one of the brave hundreds, didn't know my big bro was so famous..."

Synchronised perfectly we stop and turn on the spot looking wildly at Princess who looks at our shocked expression and says "oh so you have heard of him" with an innocent smile.

Forcing a smile on my lips I tell her that yes her big bro is quite famous. The others quick on the uptake plaster on their best fake smile and tell Princess that they know of the brave hundreds and how brave they were.

With a giggle she skipped along and everyone did their best to regain their composure, even Patoicos was having a hard time jumping around in joy. Twelve year olds should jot have to learn of such a thing, I'm sure someone will break it to her when she is old enough to handle it...

Confused slightly as some minor details I turn back round to her and inquire "so why did you put all your points into Vitality?"

"Oh Bees told me to, said he didn't wan't his little princess to get hurt"

"Bees?" Asks Calitharsis

"My daddy, well one of my daddies."

A "huh?" came from everyone except Messenger Boy who just sighed

"She is staying with 'Bees' and 'Asmodeus' who have sort of adopted her. Its my job to know this kind of thing, and they can be trusted" says Messenger Boy factually, swiping away any possible questions on the matter.

"That's right, they're my daddies"

"Well why are they letting you go into a dangerous situation if they don't want you to get hurt?" Gwynevith asks looking pretty confused of the situation.

"Its my choice, they tell me I have that and I want to find my big bro and to do that I need to get stronger first."

Fair enough. I drop the conversation. my questions and suspicions answered. I also mentally add Bees and Asmodeous to my list of people...

We reach Tolbana a short while after, the sun drooping under the horizon slowly dimming the world. Upon arriving at the gate I congratulate them all and tell them they don't need to do this any longer and can go back to their original groups.

Patoicos paces around impatiently for a few minutes before a young boy of around fourteen comes out of one of the alleyways. Patoicos then proceeds to hug and swing the boy around both laughing then walk out of sight together.

Message Boy's stomach growls audibly and with a happy sigh, which raised a curious eyebrow from me, walks off a faint tune escaping his lips.

Calitharsis tells me that he'll stay her until Princess gets picked up but the way Princess has got his left arm in a deadlock suggests he doesn't have a choice in the matter.

Waving them both off Gwynevith and I head off towards one of the many smiths in town to get our weapons and armour repaired. After that we buy a few days worth of rations and head back towards the gate.

We arrive at the gate with Calitharsis and Princess both gone and replaced with a stream of people returning back to town before the sun sets. Unlike them we plan to head outside and do so by walking through the crowd who part slightly thanks to. Gwynevith I'm sure.

Leaving the safe zone we turn towards the direction of Starting city and start walking.

-page break-

Finally after 7 hours of jogging and taking the odd nap in between to keep our strength up we reach Starting city. We had gotten through the night monsters with not too many troubles as we hit level 5 about 2 hours in making us around the same level as the buffed night mobs.

It was strange as it only took us around 8 hours to get back whereas it had taken us 4 days and a bit just to get there. It really was just a couple of hours away but with aggroing a large pack of monsters every few minutes really slowed the expedition down. As well as the fact that I only had a rough idea where Tolbana was so we got slightly sidetracked here and there. Also we hadn't walked through the night because too much of a pain to light all those torches and fight off the buffed mobs. Well we had to do that anyways but at least no one died only a few lost limbs here and there and miraculously regenerated which was nice to know.

Reaching the safe zone of Starting city I set my alarm for 30 minutes time and we take a quick nap...

30 minutes later I get woken up by the alarm and After waking Gwynevith we set off towards Horunka...

...

_2 and half hours later_

Trudging through the forest we walk cautiously. The forest had been normal for the first 2 hours with 2 packs of 8 finding their way to us. It was difficult as they were still buffed and still are but Gwynevith still 1 hit killed them so we didn't have too much trouble.

However at around 5-ish the wolf packs stopped coming altogether. Also a few minutes ago just before dawn the wolves, all of them stopped spawning. No pairs, no packs at all.

It is coming up to 6 now and I can see the morning rays find its way past the canopy and onto the forest floor. Well on the bright side it meant we didn't have to fight our way through the forest anymore as I am deadbeat and I suspect Gwynevith feels the same. So I decided to relax and stroll through the morning forest.

The relaxing feeling only lasts for seconds as an urgent ping of a message window sounds by me. Its from Message Boy I see so I open up the message...

**-ChazRay**


End file.
